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Getting  the  Most 
OUT  OF  Business 

Observations   of  the   Application    of 

the   Scientific   Method    to 

Business    Practice 

By 
E.  ST.  ELMO   LEWIS 

Vice-President  and  General  Manager,  Art  Metal  Construction  Company  ;  formerly 

Advertising-  Manager,  Burrotighs   Adding  Machine   Companv  ;  ex-President, 

Association  National  Advertising  Managers  ;  ex-Vice-President,  National 

Association  of  Corporation  Schools;  Member,  Atnerican  Philosophical 

Associatiofi ;    The    Efficiency    Society,    Incoiporated ;    National 

Economic  Society  ;  Author  of  '■''The  Credit  Man  and  His 

IVori,"   ''Creative  Salesmanship,"  ''Financial 

Advertising,"  etc.,  etc. 

THIRD  EDITION 


NEW  YORK 

THE   RONALD   PRESS  COMPANY 

1915 


Copyright,  1915,  by 
The  Ronald  Press  Company 


Copyright,  1915,  by 

E.  St.  Elmo  Lewis  and 

The  Ronald  Press  Company 


Wllllulii  «.  Hewitt  PreHa,  Urouklyli,  Prlute 
J.  P.  T«|.ley  Co.,  New  Voik,  Ulmlera 


5500 


To  My  Friend, 

Harrington  Emerson, 

Engineer,  Educator,  Philosopher, 

Whose  Encouragement 

Led  Me  to  Make 

This  Book 


554578 


THE   AUTHOR'S   CONFESSION 

I  confess  I  had  little  thought  of  writing  a  book  when 
the  articles*  from  which  this  book  has  grown,  first  took 
shape. 

My  business  life  has  been  cast  in  a  twentieth  century 
mold.  As  an  editor,  advertising  man,  a  sales  manager  and 
business  executive,  I  have  always  been  most  interested  in 
the  relation  of  business  to  the  masses.  As  a  manager  of 
men,  whether  through  direct  daily  contact,  or  on  the  plat- 
form, or  through  the  printed  word,  or  in  voluntary  associa- 
tions, I  have  found  certain  fundamental  principles  which, 
when  skilfully  applied,  invariably  brought  the  desired  result. 

These  principles  are  not  easily  formulated,  nor  are  they 
easy  of  application  in  the  face  of  wrong  practice  so  old  as 
to  have  become  petrified  in  a  sacred  tradition. 

But  I  have  seen  staid  and  pompous  bankers  brought  to 
see  them — I  have  seen  them  reach  the  White  House  as 
political  shibboleths  of  a  party  personified — I  have  seen  a 
great  manufacturer  blazon  them  as  a  new  discovery — I  have 
seen  other  manufacturers  meet  in  solemn  conclave  to  discuss 
them  seriously  and  wisely — principles  and  methods  which 
ten  years  ago  would  have  been  dismissed  as  piffle. 

This  state  of  mind,  this  philosophy,  this  "way  of  looking 
at  things,"  which  has  been  called  efficiency,  for  the  want  of 
a  better  name,  is  the  old,  old,  but  ever  new,  cold  passion  of 
the  scientist  for  truth,  as  compared  with  the  careless,  pur- 
poseless strenuosity  of  the  rule  of  thumb. 

This  "way  of  looking  at  things"  has  come  to  be  of  great 
importance — for  even  as  I  write  there  are  two  ways-of- 
looking-at-things  fighting  the  bloodiest  war  of  all  history. 

•  Appeared  in  The  Caxton  during  1913. 

iii 


iv  AUTHOR'S    CONFESSION 

The  one  is  thinking  as  Heinrich  von  Treitschke,  the 
German  war  prophet,  taught  his  people  to  think,  that 
Germany  is  waging  a  holy  war  for  Germany's  right  to  "a 
place  in  the  sun,"  based  on  the  fundamental  that  "the  state 
can  do  no  wrong."  Against  this  is  the-way-of-looking-at- 
things  of  the  other  school  which  says,  ethics  bind  states  as 
well  as  individuals ;  that  things  as  they  are  should  be  left  to 
work  themselves  out  in  peace. 

Without  adopting  either  side  as  our  philosophy,  it  is 
these  two  "ways  of  looking  at  things"  which  are  at  war. 

So  in  business,  the  two  schools — one  saying,  "Learn  by 
doing  and  trust  in  God" ;  the  other  saying,  "Learn  what  is 
best,  then  do  it,  and  God  will  be  on  your  side." 

The  issue,  as  the  lawyers  would  say,  is  joined  there. 

The  following  pages  reflect  one  line  of  argument  for 
the  oflfence. 

I  am  profoundly  conscious  of  its  limitations,  both  as  a 
literary  performance  and  a  contribution  to  its  chosen  sub- 
ject. I  am  rather  persuaded  to  let  it  go,  because  I  want  the 
average  business  man  to  know  something  of  the  things  I 
have  written.  I  think  I  know  the  prejudices  and  narrow 
viewpoint  which  have  so  often  served  to  make  such  men 
commercially  successful  at  the  expense  of  social,  political, 
and  economic  usefulness,  and  I  know  their  class  contempt 
for  the  man  who  has  never  played  the  game  as  they  have 
played  it. 

I  believe,  therefore,  that  the  very  limitations  of  crafts- 
manship in  this  book  may  tend  to  make  for  it  a  more  tolerant 
audience.  This,  then,  my  dear  literary  critic  and  wise 
reviewer  of  books,  is  a  plea  in  confession  and  avoidance.  I 
confess  this  is  not  a  book  of  any  importance  to  you — but  T 
avoid  the  consequences  of  such  defect,  by  the  fact  that  it 
may  be  read  with  some  profit  by  mere  business  men  like 
myself. 


AUTHOR'S    CONFESSION  V 

The  book  has  not  been  written  so  much  to  reform  man- 
agement as  to  suggest  a  method  by  which  to  manage  reform. 

It  does  not  matter  whether  the  business  man  Hkes  effi- 
ciency as  a  philosophy,  nor  how  little  consolation  he  may 
find  for  his  lack  of  efficiency  in  the  frequent  failures  of  the 
efficiency  engineer,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  entrance  of 
the  scientific  spirit  of  the  engineer  into  all  the  administrative 
and  executive  functions  of  business,  has  changed  the  rules 
of  the  business  game.  Business  will  never  again  be  the  same 
comfortable,  happy-go-lucky,  go-as-you-please  occupation  it 
once  was. 

This  is  a  new  day,  and  a  new  philosophy  is  necessary  to 
read  its  riddle. 

In  a  letter  written  while  this  book  was  in  preparation, 
my  friend,  Mr.  Harrington  Emerson,  reflects  this  new  spirit 
so  well  that  I  quote  it  here,  not  so  much  because  of  its  .in- 
spiring and  suggestive  usefulness,  but  that  I  may  have  a 
text  for  all  that  I  have  to  say  in  the  following  pages. 

Here  is  the  text : 

"Perhaps  it  is  only  because  of  the  interest  in  the  work, 
but  each  year  the  problem  seems  clearer  and  more  simple. 
There  is  never  need  of  letting  loose  of  former  good  instru- 
ments, like  time  and  motion  studies  for  materials,  men,  and 
machines,  but  I  take  a  stranglehold  further  back. 

"Recently  I  have  been  studying  organization.  It  is 
astonishing  how  little  has  been  written  on  the  subject.  We 
all  know  how  defective  up  to  date,  individual  training  has 
been  in  spite  of  generally  accepted  fundamentals.  Therefore 
imagine  how  defective  the  practical  schemes  of  organization 
when  the  fundamentals  of  organization  are  so  superficially 
known. 

"My  definition,  a  tentative  one,  of  organization  is — for 
a  definite  purpose,  the  proper  person  ready  to  use  with  skill, 
power,  responsibility,  and  intensity,  the  proper  instruments. 


vi  AUTHOR'S    CONFESSION 

The  proper  person  is  the  most  important  of  the  three.  To 
what  extent,  anywhere,  at  any  time,  in  any  department  of 
human  activity  is  the  proper  person  for  a  position  scien- 
tifically, perfectly,  and  infallibly  selected  in  advance?  Such 
selections  do  take  place  in  athletics  and  for  orchestras,  but 
where  else  ?  That  such  selections  are  made  in  athletics  and 
in  orchestras  proves  that  the  thought  is  not  Utopian.  Why 
should  the  practice  not  be  universal  ? 

"We  do  not  play  humble  puppy  as  to  materials  or  as  to 
equipment. 

"When  I  buy  and  test  belting  or  steel  wire  or  babbit  on 
specifications,  I  am  not  taking  any  chances.  When  the  U.  S. 
Government  supervises  the  manufacture  of  marine  boiler 
plate  and  of  anchor  chains,  it  is  not  taking  any  chances. 
When  I  specify  a  Burroughs  Adding  Machine,  I  am  not 
taking  any  chances.  Also,  when  I  specify  in  advance  the 
qualities  required  for  a  particular  position  and  then  find  the 
person  with  the  qualities,  I  am  not  taking  any  chances. 

"Is  it  possible  to  predetermine  the  essential  qualities  for 
positions  ?  Yes.  We  can  make  an  elementary  beginning  by 
specifying  health,  intelligence,  honesty,  and  industry. 

"Is  it  possible  by  analysis  and  test  to  select  applicants 
with  the  essential  aptitudes?  Yes.  Health,  intelligence, 
honesty,  and  industry  are  not  beyond  predetermination. 

"If  this  is  possible,  organization  becomes  a  definite  sci- 
ence, as  much  so  as  bridge  or  boiler  design  and  construction. 
Give  us  the  right  man  in  the  right  place  as  a  foundation  and 
we  can  joyfully  fortify  him  with  ideals,  with  common  sense, 
with  competent  counsel,  with  discipline,  with  the  fair  deal, 
with  efficiency  reward ;  we  can  go  ahead  with  plans,  with 
schedules,  with  despatching;  we  can  standardize  conditions, 
operations  and  instructions;  we  can  check  everything  with 
reliable,  immediate,  and  adequate  records  and  with  any  other 
principles,  methods,  or  devices  that  experience  warrants. 


AUTHOR'S    CONFESSION  vii 

There  is,  for  instance,  the  principle,  the  truth,  that  as  to 
personality  and  materials  and  equipment,  the  intrinsic  value 
increases  faster  than  cost.  This  is  not  so  of  monopolies  like 
diamonds  or  Manhattan  real  estate  or  pictures  of  old  mas- 
ters, or  Caruso's  voice,  but  it  is  true  of  artificial  rubies,  of 
farm  lands,  of  photographs  and  moving  pictures,  and  of 
phonograph  records.  Almost  without  limit  the  right  ma- 
terial is  cheaper  than  the  wrong  material,  high  speed  steel 
is  actually,  comparatively  worth  over  $i,ooo  a  pound  if  car- 
bon steel  is  worth  14c.  A  sewing  machine  is  actually  worth 
for  continuous  work  $30,000,  if  needles  and  thimbles  are 
worth  IOC.,  and  the  man  who  puts  successfully  "Big  Ben" 
or  the  Cash  Register  or  the  Burroughs  Adding  Machine  on 
market  might  be  cheap  at  $100,000  a  year. 

'Tn  your  own  city  you  have  a  remarkable  man  who  has 
been  the  pioneer  in  dropping  the  price  of  first-class  small 
automobiles  from  $8,000  to  $500,  who  has  made  millions 
for  his  investors  and  who  now  proposes  to  add  $10,000,000 
a  year  extra  to  the  wage  fund.  As  a  governmental  purchase 
such  a  genius  might  be  cheap  at  $100,000,000. 

"And  now  one  more  point.  Human  beings  are  influ- 
enced by  a  combination  of  vital,  motive,  and  mental  quali- 
ties, powers,  ideals.  The  old  Egyptians  made  the  combina- 
tion out  of  soldier,  king,  and  priest.  In  our  modern  way  we 
may  define  them  as  soldier,  gentleman,  and  scholar — not  so 
good  as  the  Egyptian  grasp.  Every  position  requires  all 
of  the  trinity  in  special  and  particular  proportions.  If  you 
cannot  find  them  in  one  individual  you  must  take  as  many 
as  may  be  necessary. 

"Just  as  orange,  violet,  and  green  lights  when  combined 
result  in  pure  white,  so  does  the  proper  combination  of  the 
ideals  of  the  soldier,  of  the  king,  and  of  the  priest  result  in 
perfect  balance.  The  soldier  grasps  the  immediate,  the  king 
uses  for  human  enjoyment  and  satisfaction  what  has  been 


viii  AUTHOR'S    CONFESSION 

achieved,  and  the  priest  constantly  sets  higher  ideals  for 
to-morrow,  for  next  year,  for  the  next  generation,  for  the 
next  age,  for  the  next  eon. 

"Without  the  priest  we  would  still  be  grubbing  maggots, 
but  only  the  active  vital  maggots  survived  ultimately  to 
evolve  into  priests. 

"The  right  man  in  the  right  place  is  no  easy  job;  it  is 
the  biggest  problem  there  is  and  requires  all  of  everything 
that  is  great  for  even  an  approximate  success.  Eugenics 
would  not  solve  it,  for  mere  eugenics  does  not  necessarily 
put  the  race  horse  on  the  race  track  and  the  cart  horse  in 
the  dray. 

"By  actual  test  we  find  that  three-quarters  of  all  workers 
including  executives  are  badly  placed,  while  only  thirty  per 
cent  of  applicants  are  unemployable.  The  bigger  practical 
problem  is  to  utilize  peat,  wood,  coal,  including  blast  furnace 
gases,  rather  than  to  try  to  use  hydrogen  exclusively  for 
fuel.  I  do  not  believe  there  is  a  useless  residuum  of  over 
five  per  cent,  so  eugenics  and  sterilization  of  the  unfit  are 
not  the  all-important  problems." 

I  acknowledge  my  very  great  obligation  to  Harrington 
Emerson  for  friendly  counsel  and  encouragement ;  to  F.  W. 
Reed,  of  my  staff,  for  proofreading,  criticism,  and  sugges- 
tions ;  and  to  a  host  of  executives,  workingmen,  and  corre- 
spondents, who  have  been  the  source  of  whatever  is  good, 
helpful,  and  suggestive  in  the  following  pages.  As  for  the 
rest,  I  commend  it  to  the  tender  mercies  of  the  professional 
critic. 

E.  St,  Elmo  Lewis 

Jamestown,  N.  Y. 
December  3,  19 14 


CONTENTS 


Chapter       Part  I — Making  the  Right  Start  Page 

I  Thought  as  a  Business  Asset 23 

Crooked  Thinking 

The  Value  of  Thought 

As  a  Man  Thinketh 

The  Moral  Risk 

The  Thinker  as  a  Seer 

The  Changing  World  Problem 

Vocational  Adjustment  as  a  Solution 

Learning  to  Think  Right 

The  Vocational  Study  of  Mankind 

Standards  of  Thought  Value 

Experience  as  a  Guide  to  Thought 

Age  as  Affecting  Thought 

II  Efficiency  and  Its  AppHcations 32 

Efficiency  Adjustment 

The  Efficient  Life 

Practicality  and  Dogmatism 

A  Classification  of  Mental  Types 

I— The  Rule-of-Thumb  Man 

2 — The  Practical  or  Systematic  Man 

3 — The  Scientific  or  Efficient  Man 
Progress  Is  Change 
Common  Sense  and  Science 
Education  for  Efficiency 

III  Efficiency  and  Its  Problems 43 

"Where  Are  We  At?" 

Thought  as  a  World  Force 

Present  Day  Problems 

Too  Much  Lawyer-Law 

Religious  Problems 

Tariff  Problems 

Labor  Problems 

Problems  in  Politics 

The  New  Order  in  the  Business  World 

ix 


X  CONTENTS 

Chapter  Page 

IV  Efficiency  and  Its  Standards 48 

Standards  of  Business  Efficiency 

The  Basic  Principles  of  Efficiency 

A  National  Business  Bureau 

The  Lucky  Theory 

The  Success  Principle 

The  Gospel  of  Efficiency 

The  Cult  of  the  Incompetent 

Efficiency  Obstacles 

Efficiency  Standards 

The  Lack  of  Efficiency  Requirements 

The  Use  of  Efficiency  Standards 

Standardized  Efficiency 

The  Man  and  the  Vision 

What  Will  We  Do  With  It? 

Part  II — What's  the  Use? 

V  Some  Business   Policies 63 

The  Book  of  Rules 
Waste 

The  "Let  Alone"  Policy 
The  Viewpoint  of  the  Public 
The  Policy  of  Publicity 
The  Study  of  Mankind 
Emotion  as  an  Efficiency  Factor 

VI  Psychology  and  Common  Sense 75 

Applied  Psychology 

Psychology  at  Work 

Illusions 

The  Work  of  Science 

Efficient  Common  Sense 

The  Selfridge  Experiment 

VII  Efficiency  and  Common  Sense 84 

The  Missing  Link 

A  Failure  of  Distribution 

Trade-Mark  Mistakes 

Scientific  Common  Sense 

A  Personal  Efficiency  Test 

Vocational  Study 

The  Selection  of  the  Fittest 


CONTENTS  xi 

Chapter  Page 

The  Try  and  Fail  Method  of  Employment 
Efficiency  Charts 

Part  III — The  Rules  of  the  Game 

VIII  Doers  and  Thinkers 99 

An  American  Error 

A  Creed  of  Humility 

The  Place  of  the  Thinker 

The  Problem  of  Business  Training 

What  Is  Truth? 

The  Point  of  View 

Men  Who  Do  Not  Make  Good 

IX  The  Rule  of  Thumb io6 

The  New  Industrial  Day 

The  Shadow  of  the  Old  Day 

"My  Business  Is  Different" 

The  Essence  of  Individuality 

The  Geometrical  Increase  of  Expense 

Loss  Prevention 

The  Burden  of  System 

The  Conditions  of  Operative  Inefficiency 

The  Conditions  of  Operating  Efficiency 

The  Danger  of  Over-Specialization 

X  The  Rules  of  Efficiency 113 

The  Rules  of  Industrial  Efficiency 
Some  Rules  of  Accounting  Efficiency 
Instructing  the  New  Clerk 
Establishing  Standards 
The  Twelve  Principles  of  Efficiency 
The  Scientific  Application  of  Principles 
Work  for  the  Thinker  and  the  Doer 
Franklin's  Personal  Efficiency  Plan 
Working  by  Schedule 
Index  to  Data  Files 
Preservation  of  Ideas 
Standardization  by  Experts 
The  Letter  Killeth 

XI  The  Work  of  Efficiency 133 

What  Efficiency  Can  Do 
Efficiency  in  Selling 


xii  CONTENTS 

Chapter  Page 

Inefficiency  in  Advertising 
Inefficiency  in  Management 
Inefficiency  in  the  Office 
Efficiency  in  the  Individual 
Organization  Efficiency 

Part  IV — On  the  Road  to  Damascus 

XII  The  New  Gospel  of  Commercial  Efficiency 145 

The  Dawning  of  the  New  Era 

The  New  Creed 

The  Apostle  of  the  New  Era 

Wanamaker  Publicity 

The  Spirit  of  Wanamaker  Publicity 

Philosophy  of  Wanamaker  Publicity 

Wanamaker's  Scientific  Open-Mindedness 

The  Old  Order 

The  Journey  to  Damascus 

XIII  The  Gift  of  Perception 158 

Some  Who  Saw 
Sight  Limitations 
The  Power  to  See 
The  Hidden  Possibilities 
Looking  Ahead 

XIV  Seen  on  the  Way 165 

An  Efficient  Type 

The  Work  and  the  Workers 

Education  in  Efficiency 

The  Broader  Business  Education 

The  Responsibility  of  the  Business  Man 

Education  for  Real  Life 

Theory  and  Practice 

"Made  in  Germany" 

German  and  American  Educational  Methods 

American  Man-Culture 

The  Corporation  School 

The  Wanamaker  School 

Improvement  Clubs  and  Special  Schools 

XV  Those  Who  Lead 178 

Why  They  Are  Leaders 

The  Originality  of  Adaptation 


CONTENTS 


Chapter 


Xlll 

Page 


Taking  Down  the  Blinds 

Education  That  Strengthens 

The  Basis  of  Successful  Work 

Getting  the  Viewpoint 

The  Open  Mind 

"Stop,  Look,  and  Listen" 

Part  V — Loyalty  to  the  Vision  of  Things  Well  Done 

XVI  The  Religion  of  Loyalty 189 

A  Message  from  the  Orient 

The  Spirit  of  the  New  Japan 

Japanese  Loyalty  Plus  Efficiency 

Adaptation  as  an  Efficiency  Factor 

The  World  Spirit 

Bushido 

The  Principles  of  Bushido 

I — Rectitude  or  Justice 

2 — Courage— The  Spirit  of  Daring  and  Bearing 

3 — Benevolence — The  Sympathy  with  Distress 

4 — Politeness — The  Distinguishing  Virtue  of  the  Japanese 

5 — Veracity  and  Sincerity 

6 — Honor — The  Most  Sacred  of  the  Virtues  of  Bushido 

7— The  Duty  of  Loyalty 

8 — Education  and  Training 

9 — Self-Control 
10 — Suicide  and  Redress 
The  Mystery  of  Mankind 

XVII  Loyalty  to  Plan  and  Purpose 203 

The  Ultimate  Objective 

The  Motor  Power  of  Success 

The  True  Policy 

What  Constitutes  Loyalty 

Imagination  as  a  Success  Factor 

The  Why  of  Failure 

Rules  for  Success  in  Retailing 

What  Jones  Thought  Over 

XVIII  Loyalty  to  Ideals 215 

The  Point  of  View 
The  House  Policy 
The  Spirit  of  the  Rules 
What  Is  a  House  PoHcy? 


xiv  CONTENTS 

Chapter  Page 

The  Wanamaker  Store  Policy 

First— As  to  the  Public 

Second — As  to  the  Working  People 
The  Cardinal  Points  of  the  Business 
The  Wanamaker  Idea 
The  Man  Motive 
Looking  Upward 
Loyalty  to  Self 
Loyalty  to  the  Vision 

Part  VI — A  Paper  of  Brass  Tacks 

XIX  The  N.  C.  R.  School .'   231 

The  School  Record 

The  Basal  Principle 

Origin  of  the  N.  C.  R.  School 

The  Idea 

The  Problem 

Required  Instructions 

Some  of  the  Results 

Instructors  and  Methods 

XX  Standard  Practice  Instructions 240 

Formulas  and  Precepts 
Lodge's  Rules  of  Management 
Napoleon  as  a  Civil  Administrator 
An  Administrative  Manualization 
Manualizing  the  Salesman's  Work 
The  Salesman 

Making  the  Precept  Practice 
Standardizing  Sales  Methods 
The  "Possible  Purchaser" 

XXI  The  Sales  Manual 250 

Genesis  of  a  Sales  Manual 

The  N.  C.  R.  Manual 

Arrangement  of  the  N.  C.  R.  Manual 

The  Sales  Quota 

The  lOO-Pointers  Reward 

Managing  the  Sales  Force 

The  Doctrine  of  Definite  Instructions 

The  Patterson  Way 

XXII  Extension  of  the  School  Plan 260 

Net  Results  of  the  N.  C.  R.  School 


CONTENTS 


XV 


Chapter 


Page 


The  Curtis  School 

National  Cloak  and  Suit  School 

The  Larkin  School 

Applied  Psychology  of  the  Victor  Talking  Machine  Company 

Globe-Wernicke  Doctrine 

Investigations  That  Mislead 

Facing  the  Facts 

The  Spread  of  Efficiency 


Part  VII — Who  Says  So? 

XXIII  The  One-Man  Fallacy 

The  Walsh  Tragedy 

Autocratic  Rule 

The  Why  of  Walsh's  Failure 

The  Marshall  Field  Way 

A  Man  Who  Couldn't  Grow 

How  Others  Can  Help 

Advertising 

The  Concrete  Case  Delusion 

The  Man  Outside 

Don't  Jump  in  the  Dark 

XXIV  Rational  Business  Methods 

Think,  Then  Act 

The  Purchase  of  Brains 

Interchange  of  Experience 

Mixed  Accounts 

The  Counsel  of  Perfection 

Give  the  Expert  a  Chance 

The  Qualifications  of  the  Expert 

The  Work  of  the  Expert 

Measuring  the  Expert 

Where  an  Expert  Was  Needed 

Supplanting  a  Bad  System 

A  Standard  Practice  Book 

Establishing  a   Schedule 

The  Side  Drift 

Beware  of  Misinformation 

XXV  Scientific  Principles  Applied  to  Business 
A  Story  of  Cravats 

Science  and  Business 


269 


281 


298 


xvi  CONTENTS 

Chapter  Page 

The  Royal  Laboratory 

Corporation  Research  Laboratories 

"The  Mayor's  Eye" 

Market  Statistics  vs.  Market  Guesses 

Follow  the  Rules 

The  Men  Who  Block  the  Way 

Recognition  of  the  Expert 


Part  VIII — Thinker,  Doer  &  Company 

XXVI  The  Executive  Organization 311 

The  Man  Who  Got  Things  Done 

Beginning  Reform  at  the  Top 

Managerial  Mistakes 

A  House  Divided 

The  Planning  Department 

The  Taylor  and  Emerson  Systems  of  Scientific  Management 

Efficiency  Principles  Fixed — Methods  Vary 

The  American  Line  Idea  of  Business  Organization 

The  Work  and  the  Man 

The  Planned  Organization 

Fatal  Economy 

Elements  of  Good  Management 

XXVII  The  Line  and  Staff  System 327 

Line  and  Staff  Organization 

The  Staff  Idea 

Will  Cure  Two  Evils 

The  Objective  Attitude 

The  House  J.  P.  Morgan  Built 

Staff  versus  Committee 

Mark  Twain  on  Expert  Knowledge 

Staff  and  Committee  Co-operation 

Application  of  the  Staff  Idea 

Using  the  Man  Power 

Salesman  and  Selling  Methods 

The  Staff  Idea  Applied  to  Salesmanship 

Planning  a  Cereal  Campaign 

The  Staff  and  the  Selling  Organization 

An  Advertising  Failure 

Scientific  Management  in  the  Navy 

Scientific  Retailing 


CONTENTS  xvii 

Chapter     Part  IX — One  Foot  Inside  the  Door  Page 

XXVIII  Individuality 351 

The  Human  Element 

Self  and  Self  Sacrifice 

The  Liberty  of  Self 

The  Higher  Selfishness 

A  Standard  of  Right 

Individuality  as  an  Efficiency  Principle 

The  Trinity  of  Self 

What  Makes  the  Master 

The  Domination  of  the  Master 

XXIX  The  Efficient  Individuality 360 

Squaring  the  Round  Peg 

Wherein  the  Value  of  Individuality 

The  Measure  of  Self 

The  Two  Tests 

The  Ambition  of  Self 

The  Faith  of  Works 

Efficiency  and  the  Individual 

Efficiency  Differences 

The  Individuality  of  a  Business 

The  Menace  of  the  Egotist 

What  the  "Rank  Outsider"  Did 

What  Is  Freedom? 

Efficiency  Well-Directed  Energy 

"Insist  on  Yourself;  Do  Not  Imitate" 

The  Limit  of  Equality 

XXX  According  to  the  Rules 373 

The  Prevalence  of  Law 

The  Method  of  Saint  Gaudens 

The  Individuality  and  Science 

By  the  Rule 

The  Supremacy  of  Law 

The  Rules  of  the  Road 

The  Testimony  of  the  Masters 

Laws  of  Efficiency  Control 

The  Test  of  Efficiency 

The  Efficient  Individualism 

Part  X — That  Letter  to  Hooker 

XXXT     The  Basis  of  Discipline 387 

The  True  Discipline 


xviii  CONTENTS 

Chapter  Page 

The  Work  of  Discipline 
The  Discipline  of  Lincoln  and  Lee 
The  Hooker  Letter 
Wherein  Hooker  Was  Right 
The  Basis  of  Discipline 
The  Basis  of  True  Authority 
The  Filene  Standard 
Criticism  vs.  Detraction 
"Master  of  Himself" 
Master  of  Others 

XXXII  Discipline  for  Growth. 398 

The  Purpose  of  Discipline 

The  Discipline  of  Indirection 

A  Book  of  Management 

Noblesse  Oblige 

Discipline  by  Indirection  in  Operation 

Discipline  by  Deflection 

The  Better  Way 

The  Effective  Discipline 

Discipline  by  Counteraction 

Self-Control 

XXXIII  The  Essentials  of  DiscipHne 408 

Discipline  That  Kills 

Obstacles  to  Discipline 

The  "Shoulder  Touch"  of  Discipline 

The  Power  of  Obedience 

The  Weakness  of  Deceit 

Discipline  and  Sympathy 

The  Eye  of  Discipline 

The  Discipline  of  Facts 

The  Principles  of  Discipline 

Part  XI — The  End  of  the  Rainbow 

XXXIV  The  Basis  of  Wages 417 

Making  Men 

The  Hope  of  Reward 

The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

Wages  and  Justice 

Efficiency  and  the  Golden  Rule 

Education  and  Business 

The  Open  Mind 


CONTENTS  xix 

Chapter  Page 

The  Southern  Pacific  System 
The  Game  and  Its  Rules 
The  Economy  of  High  Wages 
Who  Pays  Labor's  Bills? 
Prices  Rise  with  Wages 
The  Broader  Creed 
The  Gold  in  the  Pot 
The  Ends  of  Efficiency 
Efficiency  and  the  Worker 

XXXV  The  Wage  Plan 432 

The  Wage  Problem 

Wage  Systems 

First — A  Fixed  Salary 

Second — Salary  and  a  Bonus 

Third — Profit  Sharing 
The  Old  Way 
The  Proposed  Solution 
The  Ford  Investigation 
A  Permanent  Force 
How  the  System  Works 

Provident  Plan  of  the  American  Telephone  and  Telegraph 
Compensation  by  Commissions 
The  Study  of  Records 
Experience  as  a  Wage  Guide 
Piece-Work  and  Fair  Play 
The  Bonus  for  Brains 
The  Suggestion  System 
Requirements  of  the  Suggestion  System 

Part  XII — Ich  Dien 

XXXVI  Educated  Democracy. 455 

The  Filene  Co-operative  Association 

What  the  Filene  Co-operative  Association  Has  Done 

The  F.  C.  A.  Arbitration  Board 

What  the  F.  C.  A.  Stands  For 

Democracy  Steadfast 

XXXVII  The  Law  of  Service 461 

What  of  the  Thinkers  and  Doers? 
Education  as  a  Remedial  Agent 
The  Moral  Law  of  Service 
Good-Will  a  Product  of  Service 


XX  CONTENTS 

Chapter  Page 

The  Value  of  Good-Will 
The  Purpose  of  Co-operation 
The  Ideal  of  Service 
Democracy  Is  Not  Equality 
The  Golden  Rule  of  Efficiency 
The  Acid  Test  of  Service 

XXXVIII     The  Debt  of  Society 471 

The  Dollar  Value  of  Education 

The  Teaching  of  the  Schools 

Industry  and  Society  Interactive 

Business  Must  Solve  Its  Own  Problems 

The  Menace  of  Socialism 

True  and  False  Service 

Reform  from  the  Outside 

The  Merchant  of  the  Future 

The  Passing  of  the  Egotist 

The  New  Basis  of  Valuation 

The  Why  of  Welfare  Work 

The  Social  Debt  of  Science 

The  Social  Debt  of  Business 

The  Social  Debt  of  the  Individual 

Taking  and  Not  Giving — The  Penalty 


GETTING  THE  MOST  OUT 
OF  BUSINESS 


PART  I 

Making  the  Right  Start 


'Wo  man  zvill  find  the  best  way  to  do  a  thing  unless  he 
loves  to  do  that  thing." — Japanese  Proverb. 


CHAPTER    I 

THOUGHT     AS     A     BUSINESS     ASSET 

The  tests  of  an  educated  man  are  the  following  essen- 
tials: knowledge,  faith,  clear  thinking,  accuracy  of  ex- 
pression, self-control,  power  of  initiative,  good  conduct, 
good  manners. — Selected. 

Crooked  Thinking 

The  manager  was  agitated.  A  department  head  had 
been  guilty  of  a  peculiarly  asinine  display  of  stupidity  that 
had  cost  the  firm  not  only  money  but  prestige.  I  waited  a 
moment — then  the  storm  broke. 

"Do  you  know,"  raged  the  manager,  "I'd  give  ten 
thousand  a  year  to  that  man  if  he  would  only  think  about 
his  work." 

I  knew  that  plant  thoroughly.  The  philosophy  of  its 
management  was  summed  up  in  :  "Patent  your  product ;  buy 
out  when  you  can't  beat  competitors ;  use  the  best  machinery 
only;  keep  your  sales  force  on  the  jump — the  rest  is  mere 
detail." 

They  hired  men  not  because  they  were  thinkers,  but  be- 
cause they  had  "recommendations"  and  were  cheap.  Only 
that  morning  the  secretary  said  to  me,  "No  clerk  in  the  ac- 
counting department  can  be  worth  more  than  twelve  dollars 
a  week."  The  employment  department  made  no  tests  to  see 
if  a  man  thought,  or  if  he  had  been  trained.  Thus,  the 
first  separation  was  too  coarse,  and  the  result  was  a  high 
cost  of  production,  whether  of  thought  or  machines. 

The  management  was  thinking  crooked  and  of  course 
the  business  was  crooked. 

23 


24 


MAKING    THE    RIGHT    START 


Inefficiency  was  constitutional  because  this  manager's 
men  were  not  promoted  for  thinking;  they  were  promoted 
by  the  calendar  and  the  time-clock,  and  for  being  "faithful 
to  the  management." 

The  manager  did  not  think  about  men ;  he  swore  about 
men  and  thought  about  things  —  costs,  percentages, 
profits,  loans  at  the  bank,  machine  production,  the  tariflf, 
and  currency  reform.  He  could  marshal  figures  and  ma- 
terial in  great  detail,  but  there  was  no  generalship  in  his 
control  of  the  human  forces  of  the  business.  He  had  no 
standards  to  guide  him  in  either  the  keeping  or  hiring  of 
men,  else  he  would  have  measured  their  value  by  their 
capacities.  He  never  thought  for  them,  only  about  what 
they  did.  He  was  a  doer  and  proud  of  it.  He,  like  thou- 
sands of  our  managers,  did  not  recognize  the  truth  of 
Stephenson's  statement,  "The  greatest  engineering  is  the 
engineering  of  men."  He  didn't  have  the  right  basis  for 
his  philosophy  of  management,  and  hence  he  didn't  start 
his  men  right  and  their  finish  was  always  a  problem  of 
vexed  uncertainty. 

The  Value  of  Thought 

This  manager  could  never  have  appreciated  the  mental 
attitude  of  James  J.  Hill,  who,  looking  at  a  young  man 
who  had  told  him  that  an  order  which  Hill  had  sent  out 
was  wrong,  read  it  over  and  said:  "I  believe  you'll  do — 
you  think." 

What  is  this  habit  of  thought  the  manager  offered  so 
high  a  price  to  gain?  It  is  the  first  principle  of  successful 
living.  To  think  right  is  the  final  test  of  a  man's  value, 
for  it  is  the  necessary  start  toward  right  action.  It  is 
fundamental  to  the  practical  life — the  life  which  says  that 
the  efficient  doing  of  things  is  the  test  of  a  man's  social 
value. 


THOUGHT    AS    A    BUSINESS    ASSET  25 

What  a  man  thinks  is  the  most  important  thing  about 
him — much  more  important  than  that  he  is  a  milHonaire. 
It  is  more  important  to  know  what  an  employe  thinks 
than  what  he  can  do.  If  he  thinks  right,  I  can  use  him  for 
right  doing.  If  he  does  not  think,  and  cannot  be  made  to 
think,  he  is  a  liabiHty  in  everything  he  does. 

As  a  Man  Thinketh 

"As  a  man  thinks,  so  he  is,"  said  the  wisest  man.  We 
assent,  but  we  do  not  act  on  the  belief. 

Somehow  the  average  business  man  has  confounded 
thinking  with  what  he  calls  theorizing.  We  damn  theory. 
It  is  cheap  to  be  a  theorist ;  but  so  it  is  to  be  a  dollar-a-day 
laborer.  Ignoring  the  good  and  the  bad  in  theory,  we  build 
a  generalization  upon  an  exception.  As  usual,  we  make  too 
few  -distinctions — and  many  of  these  on  wrong  grounds. 

Every  thinker  must  theorize. 
"I  would  not  have  a  man  about  me  who  would  not 
theorize,  because  he  would  be  prejudiced,  ignorant, 
opinionated,  time-serving,  precedent-worshipping,  dogmatic, 
and  happy  only  when  in  tune  with  out-worn  practice  he 
could  understand,"  said  the  manager  of  a  great  electrical 
manufacturing  concern. 

The  thinker  may  be  radical,  progressive,  conservative 
— that  does  not  so  much  matter.  There  is  always  hope 
for  a  man  who  thinks,  for  he  will  develop  a  philosophy  of 
life  which  will  set  up  standards.  He  is  hospitable  to 
truth;  he  recognizes  his  place  in  the  world;  he  knows  that 
nothing  is  fortuitous;  he  respects  and  observes  the  law,  as 
he  sees  it ;  he  changes  because  he  sees  all  else  change.  The 
speed  of  his  adaptation  conforms  to  the  needs  of  his  life 
and  his  problems,  but  he  changes  because  he  recognizes 
the  necessity  for  keeping  in  touch  with  life  as  it  really  is. 

As  a  practical  man,  therefore,  in  the  most  hard-headed 


26  MAKING    THE    RIGHT    START 

sense  of  that  ill-used  term,  I  esteem  the  thinker  above  all 
the  other  workers  in  a  business;  and  the  manner  of  the 
thinking,  and  the  philosophy  which  is  always  the  result  of 
the  thinking,  are  the  most  important  things  about  the  man, 
and  in  every  work  I  always  make  a  generous  approximation 
of  expenses  for  thinking,  research,  invention — it  is  business 
insurance. 

When  a  manager  says,  "No  stenographer  can  be  worth 
more  than  $12.00  a  week,"  I  know  he  is  not  thinking 
right;  he  is  following  experience.  I  know  he  never  has 
stenographers  who  are  worth  more  than  $12.00  a  week. 
How  can  he?  He  is  thinking  of  $12.00  a  week — not  of 
the  value  of  stenographers.  He  confounds  price  and 
value.  His  business  is  going  to  be  no  larger  than  the 
thinker  wlio  guides  it. 

This  means,  then,  that  we  may  have  to  change  our 
minds  about  many  things  as  the  first  step  towards  effi- 
ciency, but  changing  our  mind  is  the  most  difficult  thing 
for  some  of  us  to  do. 

The  Moral  Risk 

J.  Pierpont  Morgan,  just  before  his  death,  surprised 
the  unthinking  man  when  he  said  : 

"A  man  might  not  have  anything.  I  have  known  a  man 
to  come  into  my  office  and  I  have  given  him  a  check  for  a 
million  dollars,  and  I  knew  that  he  had  not  a  cent  in  the 
world." 

On  the  same  occasion,  he  said : 

"A  man  I  do  not  trust  could  not  get  money  from  me  on 
all  the  bonds  in  Christendom."* 

Yet  why  should  the  utterance  of  a  mere  fundamental  of 
credit  by  this  banker  and  organizer  cause  so  great  comment 
among  business  men?  Have  we  not  recognized  the  moral 
risk  as  the  greatest  risk  in  credits,  insurance,  and  in  business 


•Testimony  before  the  Money  Trust  investigators,  1912-1913. 


THOUGHT    AS    A    BUSINESS    ASSET 


27 


generally?  As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  character  is  not 
the  only  asset  a  borrower  must  have  and  this  is  quite  as  well 
established  among  the  lenders  of  money  as  is  Mr.  Morgan's 
personal  rule  of  conduct. 

The  Thinker  as  a  Seer 

What  do  we  see  when  we  look  out  into  our  world  today  ? 
Are  we  satisfied  with  the  conditions  there,  and  with  what 
we  know  the  future  promises  ?  That  outlook  gives  back  to 
each  only  what  he  knows  about  the  things  he  sees.  We  have 
confidence  in  the  future  only  in  proportion  as  we  are  assured 
of  being  able  to  read  the  true  meaning  of  the  past  and 
present.  We  can  understand  the  Book  of  Life  only  as  we 
understand  the  words  in  which  it  is  written.  Herein  surely 
lies  the  reason  for  the  world's  unrest  today.  But  to  the 
trained  thinker  is  revealed  at  least  a  part  of  the  solution. 

The  Changing  World  Problem 

Our  faiths  in  the  old  beliefs  and  interpretations  of  the 
world — of  man's  part  in  it,  of  man's  relation  to  man — are 
slipping  away.  The  old  creeds  and  faiths  do  not  conform 
with  our  new  experiences  of  things  as  they  are;  old 
rewards  do  not  satisfy,  do  not  justify  a  man's  life.  We  are 
feeling  ahead  for  new  and  workable  plans  in  the  business 
world  and  in  our  individual  lives.  We  have  found  that 
even  the  gods  grow  old,  for  do  not  the  creeds  on  which  we 
have  reared  those  gods  become  outworn? 

We  see  the  sweating  labor  of  this  great  nation  with  its 
vast  resources,  and  feel  a  shock  of  bewildered  pain  that  a 
people  so  energetic,  resourceful,  and  willing,  should  get  so 
little  of  content,  happiness,  rest,  and  satisfaction  for  the 
great  price  paid.  Right  or  wrong,  our  people  are  not  con- 
tent with  their  opportunities  and  rewards,  and  are  growing 
restive  under  present  conditions. 


28  MAKING    THE    RIGHT    START 

I  do  not  believe  it  is  merely  the  envy  of  the  rich — but 
a  man  wants  to  live  beyond  the  three-square-meals-a-day 
life.    He  wants  to  get  above  the  mere  physical  plane. 

Vocational  Adjustment  as  a  Solution 

Professor  James  stated  our  problem  when  he  said :  "How 
can  men  be  trained  up  to  their  most  useful  pitch  of  energy?" 
While  only  five  per  cent  of  people  are  actually  unusable, 
it  is  a  small  fraction  of  the  ninety-five  per  cent  who  are  so 
placed  as  to  make  it  possible  for  them  to  work  at  their 
most  "useful  pitch  of  energy." 

Here  is  the  problem — and  its  key — of  the  whole  puz- 
zling, complex  condition  in  America.  When  you  have 
put  the  man  where  he  can  do  his  best  work  in  the  best 
way  for  the  best  pay,  you  have  gained  the  end  sought — 
more  satisfaction  and  content  for  the  man,  more  profit  for 
society. 

Learning  to  Think  Right 

We  cannot  help  thinking  today  about  business,  capi- 
tal, and  labor,  as  we  had  to  think  about  taxation  in  1776, 
or  about  slavery  in  i860.  Those  who  have  not  been 
taught  to  think  by  accurate  processes  are  none  the  less 
forced  into  new,  if  impotent,  realizations.  We  may  still 
spend  ten  times  as  much  for  tobacco  as  for  books,  but  we  are 
buying  more  serious  books  than  ever.  Five  times  as 
many  books  on  philosophic  and  scientific  subjects  were 
published  in  191 1  as  were  published  in  1906,  yet  the  total 
of  all  books  was  but  slightly  increased.  I  believe  the  pro- 
portion of  "serious"  books  was  larger  in  19 13. 

People  are  thinking,  although  as  a  cynical  observer  re- 
marked tbe  other  day,  "Women  still  get  off  the  cars  back- 
wards." Mere  thinking,  however,  does  not  settle  prob- 
lems great  or  small.    We  must  learn  right  thinking  as  we 


THOUGHT    AS    A    BUSINESS    ASSET  29 

learn  to  sing,  for  right  thinking  comes  no  more  naturally 
to  us  than  correct  speaking.  Most  men  of  untrained 
minds  seem  to  think,  as  Dr.  George  F.  Swain  said,  "that 
reasoning  is  a  natural  function  of  the  mind  just  as  walk- 
ing is  of  the  legs;  but  even  if  it  were  true  that  the  'brain 
secretes  thought  as  the  liver  secretes  bile,'  it  certainly  is 
not  true  that  it  naturally  secretes  logical  thought.  Be- 
cause a  man  has  a  mind  it  does  not  follow  that  he  can 
think  correctly." 

It  is  the  old  familiar  comedy,  or  tragedy,  as  you  hap- 
pen to  view  it — the  round  pegs  in  the  square  holes.  These 
misplaced  pegs  are  refusing  to  stay. 

The  Vocational  Study  of  Mankind 

What  are  we  going  to  do  about  it?  What  is  the 
answer?  Should  we  not  make  a  careful,  scientific  study  of 
man  in  relation  to  the  work  he  does — whether  it  be  in 
factory,  salesmaking,  advertising,  keeping  a  set  of  books, 
operating  a  typewriter,  or  sticking  stamps  on  a  wrapper? 
Out  of  that  study  will  come  facts  which  we  may  classify 
into  general  laws  and  principles,  the  skillful  application  of 
which  must  make  the  most  successful  business,  the  most 
contented  workers,  the  most  peaceful  and  prosperous 
society. 

This  is  no  Utopia.  The  process  is  going  on.  There 
are  managers  with  the  vision  who  are  accomplishing  the 
happier  result. 

Standards  of  Thought  Value 

In  such  a  study  of  this  subject  only  general  principles 
can  be  laid  down,  but  principles  are  an  important,  and  a 
most  necessary  preliminary  to  the  application  of  methods. 
Principles  are  eternal,  but  methods  change  with  the  tick- 
ing of  the  clock.     The  principle  that  psychology  alone  can 


30 


MAKING    THE    RIGHT    START 


help  us  free  ourselves  from  the  illusions  of  our  senses, 
remains  true,  whether  we  understand  psychology  to  be 
"human  nature,"  "study  of  the  mind,"  "keen  observa- 
tion," or  "common  sense" — in  preference  to  the  scientific 
term  itself.  We  shall  stop  fighting  words,  when  we  are 
more  efficient.  The  fact  is  we  know  there  are  standards  of 
use  by  which  we  measure  the  value  of  the  conclusions  of 
all  thinking.  We  must  learn  how  to  apply  such  stan- 
dards to  our  own  conditions  and  personal  problems.  Let 
us  get  started  right  by  finding  where  we  really  are  and 
what  we  really  know — in  other  words,  whether  we  are 
really  as  good  or  as  clever  or  as  efficient  as  we  think 
we  are. 

A  man  must  have  the  facts — all  the  facts — before  he 
can  think  about  them  correctly.  Half  knowledge  of  facts, 
or  whole  knowledge  of  misinformation,  means  poor  think- 
ing and  incorrect  conclusions. 

We  must  get  the  facts  of  things  before  we  can  evolve 
laws  to  govern  our  actions  with  respect  to  those  things. 

Experience  as  a  Guide  to  Thought 

Every  day  we  hear  men  say  they  "know"  this  or  that. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  they  don't  know;  they  have  no  real 
knowledge  of  the  facts.  Ask  the  farmer  when  to  plant 
melons  and  he  consults  his  almanac  to  find  which  quarter 
the  moon  should  be  in  to  make  it  propitious.  He  has 
continued  to  do  this  for  generations,  notwithstanding  the 
fact  that  the  moon  didn't  have  anything  to  do  with  the 
successful  melon-growing,  for  the  non-scientific  man  can 
always  find  what  he  is  looking  for. 

Everybody  used  to  believe  that  the  sun  rose  and  set — be- 
cause "they  saw  it."     They  killed  Bruno  for  denying  it. 

Men  must  be  taught  to  test  their  experience  by  some 
truth  standards  to  get  its  value. 


THOUGHT    AS    A    BUSINESS    ASSET 


31 


Age  as  Affecting  Thought 

Most  men  stop  studying  when  they  stop  going  to 
school.  During  our  maturer  years  what  we  choose  to  call 
knowledge  is  largely  made  up  of  more  or  less  accurate 
observations  from  our  daily  experience — the  equally  ill- 
tested  "experience"  of  friends  and  fellow  business  men, 
and  gossip  of  the  market-place,  home  and  society.  This 
is  quite  natural. 

Between  the  ages  of  sixteen  and  twenty-one  we  study 
things,  for  the  human  brain  is  not  then  capable  of  grasp- 
ing fundamental  abstractions;  from  twenty-one  to  twenty 
six  we  are  adjusting  our  relations  to  things  and  other 
people;  after  twenty-six,  we  devote  more  time  to  the  effi- 
cient development  of  those  relationships.  These  age 
limits  may  vary,  but  they  will  be  found  as  fairly  well- 
defined  limits  in  this  temperate  zone. 


CHAPTER     II 

EFFICIENCY  AND  ITS  APPLICATIONS 

Thought   under  scientific   tnanagement   is   75   per   cent 
analysis  and  23  per  cent  conitnon  sense. — F.  W.  Taylor. 

Efficiency  Adjustment 

As  a  nation  we  have  given  most  of  our  life  to  study- 
ing things,  finding  out  what  resources  the  country  had, 
but  today,  in  this  revival  of  interest  in  the  scientific 
method,  we  are  endeavoring  to  find  our  proper  relation- 
ships to  things,  conditions,  and  other  people — through 
conservation,  for  instance.  The  old-new  gospel  of  effi- 
ciency is  nothing  but  a  program  by  which  this  adjustment 
may  be  accomplished  most  effectually  with  the  greatest 
result.  So  man,  as  he  ever  has  and  must,  demands  the 
confidence  which  goes  with  a  purpose  and  a  plan  in  his 
business  life. 

The  efficiency  of  this  purpose  and  plan  will  be  meas- 
ured by  what  it  produces  in  the  way  of  satisfaction  to  the 
practical,  emotional,  and  scientific  natures  of  man.  As 
Protagoras  said:  "Man  is  the  measure  of  all  things,  deter- 
mining what  does  and  what  does  not  exist."  The  plan 
and  purpose  of  life  as  each  works  it  out  for  himself,  must 
save  us  today  from  errors  of  thought,  wastefulness  of 
effort,  and  the  cowardice  which  haunts  the  soul  of  the 
gambler. 

The  Efficient  Life 

If  I  do  the  square  thing  by  my  neighbor,  if  I  am  loyal 
to  the  vision  in  my  soul,  if  I  can  look  all  the  real  facts  of 
my  life  squarely  in  the  face,   with  calm  eyes  and  level 

32 


EFFICIENCY    AND    ITS    APPLICATIONS 


33 


brows,  misleading  neither  myself  nor  another,  I  am  con- 
tent to  leave  the  rest  to  Him,  who  will  neither  forget  nor 
waste  me.  Nature  does  not  ignore  us,  she  is  not  indiffer- 
ent, she  co-operates  with  us.  When  we  are  true  to  her, 
she  will  be  true  to  us.  We  must  play  the  game  according 
to  the  rules.  What  are  these  rules  of  the  efficient  life, 
by  whose  skillful  use  we  may  gain  all  to  which  we  are 
entitled?  Is  not  this  the  great  problem  which  we  must 
face  and  which  we  must  solve?  We  halt  and  stumble,  and 
grope,  and  fumble,  until  we  learn  the  game. 

We  must  learn  the  real  causes  of  success  and  failure, 
know  what  has  been  done,  see  what  is  doing,  get  a  vision 
of  what  it  is  possible  to  do  and  of  the  part  we  are  best 
fitted  to  serve  in  that  accomplishment.  That  knowledge 
lies  within  each  of  us,  for  every  soul  is  a  world  as  "a  drop 
of  water  is  a  sea  in  miniature,"  and  we  shall  see  only  what 
we  know.  Complaisant  Common  Sense  says  that  each 
man,  sooner  or  later,  finds  his  right  place.  As  a  rule,  yes, 
but  experience  says  it  will  pay  all  concerned  to  help  him 
find  it  rather  sooner  than  later. 

Society  is  demanding  that  the  value  of  Jones  to  a 
business  be  determined  as  accurately  as  the  value  of  a 
typewriting  machine  to  a  business.  The  science  of  fixing 
the  powers,  places,  and  the  values  of  men  will  be  standard- 
ized in  the  most  efficient  organization  of  society, 
as  it  is  now  being  done  in  the  most  efficient  business 
organization. 

Practicality  and  Dogmatism 

The  practical  man,  and  I  dislike  to  give  so  good  a 
name  to  so  poor  a  thing,  is  a  dogmatist  because  he  does 
not  require  scientific  standards  to  prove  his  contentions. 
He  is  a  Bourbon  because  he  dwells  almost  entirely  in  yes- 
terday's practices  and  is  a  theorist  of  the  most  trying  sort 


34 


MAKING    THE     RIGHT     START 


because  he  explains  realities  by  the  illusions  of  his  senses. 
The  department  store,  the  combination  of  little  busi- 
nesses into  big  ones,  the  cost  keeping  systems,  the  chart- 
ing of  demand,  loose-leaf  books,  card  methods,  adding 
machines,  machine  sorting  of  statistics — all  these  things 
were  ridiculed  and  damned  and  cried  down  by  the  "com- 
mon-sense" of  the  "practical  man."  Has  he  learned  any- 
thing? Of  course  not;  because  he  dwells  in  the  past  he 
considers  it  impractical  to  think,  to  dream,  to  plan  for 
the  day  after  tomorrow. 

A  Classification  of  Mental  Types 

That  clever  Englishman,  H.  G.  Wells,  recently  put  it 
aptly  when  describing  two  types  of  mind*  (one  of  which 
I  would  again  subdivide): 

"The  type  of  the  majority  of  living  people  is  that  which 
seems  scarcely  to  think  of  the  future  at  all,  which  re- 
gards it  as  a  sort  of  blank  non-existence  upon  which  the 
advancing  present  will  presently  write  events.  *  *  *  i 
think  a  more  modern  and  much  less  abundant  type  of  mind 
thinks  constantly  and  by  preference,  of  things  to  come  and 
of  present  things  mainly  in  relation  to  the  results  that  must 
arise  from  them.  The  former  type  of  mind,  when  one  gets 
it  in  its  purity,  is  retrospective  in  habit,  and  it  interprets 
the  things  of  the  present,  and  gives  value  to  this  and  denies 
it  to  that,  entirely  with  relation  to  the  past.  The  latter 
type  of  mind  is  constructive  in  habit;  it  interprets  the 
things  of  the  present  and  gives  value  to  this  or  that,  en- 
tirely in  relation  to  things  designed  or  foreseen.  *  ♦  * 
The  creative  type  of  mind  sees  the  world  as  one  great 
workshop,  and  the  present  is  no  more  than  material  for  the 
future,  or  the  thing  that  is  yet  destined  to  be." 

We  shall  go  further  than  Mr.  Wells  and  divide  these 
two  general  classes  into  three  types: 
I — The  rule-of-thumb  man. 
2 — The  practical  or  systematic  man. 
3 — The  scientific  or  efficient  man. 

•  "The  Discovery  of  the  Future,"  an  address  before  the  Royal  Institution. 


EFFICIENCY    AND    ITS    APPLICATIONS 


35 


The  Rule-of -Thumb  Man 

The  tough-minded  rule-of-thumb  man  goes  only  by- 
facts  he  knows;  these  he  judges  by  what  he  sees,  hears, 
tastes,  feels  and  smells,  but  be  sees  nothing  in  anything 
that  does  not  appeal  to  experience  as  he  has  recorded  it. 
He  is  rather  fond  of  boasting  that  he  "believes  nothing 
that  he  hears  and  only  half  of  what  he  sees."  At  the 
bottom  he  hasn't  a  very  good  opinion  of  mankind,  or,  in 
fact,  much  faith  in  the  future. 

Such  a  man  is  the  farmer  who  plants  by  the  moon  and 
reaps  by  the  grace  of  God. 

Because  he  believes  nothing  is  certain,  of  course,  the 
rule-of-thumb  man  is  superstitious.  He  is  constantly 
occupied  in  patching  and  tinkering  all  his  illusions,  old 
prejudices,  superstitions,  and  few  beliefs  as  fast  as  he  runs 
into  new  experiences  that  he  cannot  ignore.  This  forced 
patching  he  calls  "progress." 

In  business  we  find  him  the  proprietor  who  hires  an 
accountant  to  make  his  books  tell  him  something,  but 
wants  them  "kept  his  way."  We  find  him  where  adver- 
tising is  grafted  on  old  selling  methods,  and  salesmen 
think  the  advertising  appropriation  is  being  taken  out  of 
their  salaries.  Such  are  rule-of-thumb  methods  of  thought 
and  action,  under  which  men  must  be  kicked  into  improv- 
ing before  they  are  ready. 

The  god  of  the  rule-of-thumb  man  is  Experience. 

The  rule-of-thumb  manager  must  be  taught  that  his 
business  is  not  "different,"  that  experience  is  not  neces- 
sarily knowledge,  that  just  because  he  called  appendicitis 
"inflammation  of  the  bowels"  didn't  make  it  anything  but 
appendicitis. 

The  rule-of-thumb  man  must  have  his  vision  enlarged, 
else  it  becomes  ingrowing.  As  a  type,  he  is  lacking  in 
imagination,  and  therefore  complains  because  the  talks  of 


36  MAKING    THE    RIGHT    START 

the  Board  of  Commerce  and  articles  in  the  trade  papers, 
are  not  about  his  business.  He  lacks  the  power  to  adapt, 
because  he  can  only  imitate.  Imitation  works  in  a  vicious 
circle,  repeating  old  errors  until  they  become  enwrapped 
in  the  winding  sheet  of  sacred  tradition,  as  grandma's 
remedies,  and  father's  policies. 

Have  you  not  heard  him  ask,  "What  does  that  fellow 
know?  What  has  he  tO'  show  for  it?  I  have  made  more 
than  he  has;  why  should  I  pay  any  attention  to  him?" 

This  crooked  reasoning  is  a  mere  commonplace  among 
business  men.  Think  of  the  thousands  of  Diesels,  Stein- 
metzes,  Metchnikoflfs,  Pasteurs,  Darwins,  who  would 
have  to  be  sacrificed  if  the  great  common  sense  of  the  world 
acted  by  the  rule-of-thumb  standards ! 

Of  course,  the  rule-of-thumb  philosophy  in  real  life 
fails  and,  because  it  fails  so  quickly  in  managerial  positions, 
it  is  found  principally  among  routine  workers,  such  as 
mechanics,  bookkeepers,  correspondents,  and  classes  re- 
quiring but  little  education,  and  among  small  business 
men  where  the  mortality  is  so  high. 

The  Practical  or  Systematic  Man 

The  practical  man  is  the  rule-of-thumb  man  plus  sys- 
tem, and  a  wider  appreciation  of  the  value  of  the  lesson  to 
be  learned  from  the  common  experience,  which  he  calls 
common  sense. 

The  practical  man's  common  sense  is  the  first  evidence 
of  education — when  one  man  realizes  that  all  others  have 
something  that  he  can  learn  which  will  be  of  profit. 

The  practical  man  looks  forward  as  well  as  backward. 
He  makes  comparisons,  but  thinks  largely  by  external 
resemblances.    He  still  works  through  personal  standards. 

He  makes  one  great  fundamental  error.  He  measures 
men  by  himself,  and  believes  all  that  the  successful  tell  him. 


EFFICIENCY    AND    ITS    APPLICATIONS  37 

The  practical  man  knows  that  nothing  is  all  good  or 
all  bad.  He  wants  experience  because  he  feels  what  has 
been  done  is  the  only  safe  guide.  He  has  a  dash  of  skep- 
ticism and  superstition  because  he  is  not  exactly  sure 
about  the  existence  of  anything  like  law  in  the  universe. 
The  practical  man  has  a  god  too;  it  is  Compromise.  And 
his  creed  is,  "Never  be  the  first  to  try  a  new  thing,  nor 
the  last  to  drop  an  old  one." 

The  practical  man,  in  the  popular  phrase,  is  the  man 
who  has  observed  certain  current  experiences  of  himself 
and  his  fellows  in  a  way  to  protect  himself  and  his  conclu- 
sions for  the  day.  As  Lord  Beaconsfield  said:  "The  prac- 
tical man  is  he  who  continues  to  repeat  the  mistakes  of  his 
forefathers."  A  life  plan  must  have  something  more  to 
offer  than  the  observation  by  one  man  of  the  things  hap- 
pening about  him.  A  plan  must  be  good  for  tomorrow  as 
well  as  today.  Common  sense  says  paper  money  is  most 
convenient  to  handle,  but  common  sense  does  not  say  it  is 
a  dangerous  currency  on  which  to  build  a  country's  trade. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  practical  man,  no  matter  how 
willing  he  may  be  to  accept  facts,  how  much  he  may  ad- 
mire facts,  how  eagerly  he  may  pursue  facts — if  the  accur- 
acy of  his  observation  and  his  fact-standards  are  deficient — 
is  open  to  the  failure  which  comes  from  well-reasoned 
error.  He  must  see  things  as  they  really  are^ — not  as  they 
appear  to  be,  for,  as  we  have  already  noted,  he  can  see  in  a 
thing  only  what  he  knows  about  it. 

The  practical  man  profits  by  the  failure  of  the  rule-of- 
thumb  man.  He  profits  by  a  vastly  greater  quantity  of 
experience,  but  its  quality  is  but  little  improved.  He 
tries  to  test  the  quality  of  all  experience  by  his  own,  but 
because  he  places  doing  above  thinking,  he  places  all  his 
work  in  peril  of  the  desire  to  "get  it  done"  which  hurries 
him   to  half-baked   conclusions.     As   a   compromiser  he 


38  MAKING    THE    RIGHT     START 

recognizes  the  "necessity  of  the  hour."  The  American 
type  of  manager  is  an  expert  compromiser. 

The  very  essence  of  compromise,  however,  is  time- 
serving. It  is  useful  only  for  its  hour.  As  another  has 
said — "A  compromise  is  a  device  by  which  both  parties 
get  less  than  justice."  The  compromiser  has  a  fear  of  do- 
ing anything  that  is  right  just  because  it  is  right,  but  he 
adopts  the  policy  of  doing  what  is  right  to  the  extent  that 
he  conceives  to  be  practicable  or  expedient.  The  practi- 
cal man  is  too  often  a  shabby  coward  in  his  business 
morals. 

The  compromise  in  the  hands  of  a  scientific  man  be- 
comes a  device  by  which  to  do  right  without  friction,  be- 
cause he  knows  what  must  be  done,  and  by  a  progressive 
education  of  his  organization  or  his  people  ultimately  gets 
it  done  in  the  right  way. 

To  do  right  bit  by  bit  is  to  continue  to  do  evil  for  a 
long  time.  So  we  see  in  many  businesses,  contests  cover- 
ing years,  between  heads  of  departments.  At  last,  one  or 
the  other  leaves  the  business.  Then  we  find  a  sudden 
readjustment  along  the  lines  of  the  contention  of  one  or 
the  other  of  them  for  all  that  period.  There  was  a  com- 
promiser for  a  manager. 

The  man  who  can  see  only  a  few  things  as  they  really 
are,  in  their  true  proportions,  must  know  a  lot  about 
them,  and  to  do  even  a  few  things  as  they  should  be  done, 
he  must  have  an  ability  far  above  the  average. 

The  Scientific  or  EfBcient  Man 

The  scientific  and  efficient  man  goes  a  long  step  be- 
yond the  practical  man,  because  he  goes  beyond  the  mere 
appearance  of  things,  beyond  experience  as  offered  by  un- 
trained observers,  beyond  the  senses — and  he  thinks.  He 
sets  up  standards  of  truth.     He  measures  things  by  prin- 


EFFICIENCY    AND     ITS    APPLICATIONS  39 

ciples,  not  impressions.  He  looks  ahead  because  he  knows 
that  if  he  takes  care  of  tomorrow,  today  always  takes  care 
of  itself. 

He  is  more  practical  than  either  of  the  other  two  types 
because  he  has  a  greater  respect  for  real  value  as  against 
mere  price. 

He  is  more  tough-minded  than  the  rule-of-thumb  man; 
he  is  as  systematic  as  the  practical  man;  he  does,  however, 
something  which  neither  has  done;  he  places  certainty 
above  the  natural  illusions  of  the  first,  and  demands  knowl- 
edge as  against  the  mere  experience  of  the  second. 

Fundamentally,  the  practical  man  is  cynical,  for  he 
knows  the  world  and  his  competitors  are  likely  to  be 
ignorant.  He  thinks  he  knows  as  much  or  more  than 
they.    He  is  willing  to  take  a  chance. 

The  scientific  man  never  underrates  any  one.  He 
strives  to  decrease  the  element  of  chance.  He  never  banks 
on  ignorance.  He  believes  the  greatest  asset  in  business 
to  be  trained  brains,  and  he  begins  with  himself.  He  plans 
this  work  of  training,  organizes  to  do  it,  because  as  noth- 
ing happens,  he  does  not  believe  that  haphazard  methods 
will  get  efficient  results. 

Progress  Is  Change 

A  very  successful  manufacturer  once  said  to  another: 
"As  soon  as  I  find  one  of  my  managers  making  no 
changes,  I  put  my  professional  thinker  in  touch  with  his 
work,  just  to  see  if  he  is  using  hindsight  or  foresight." 

The  man  who  stops  changing  has  stopped  thinking, 
and  the  man  who  does  not  think  is  drifting — always  to- 
wards the  rocks. 

Efificiency  is  in  a  constant  state  of  flux,  applying  old 
principles  by  new  methods  to  new  conditions.  In  the 
efficient  organization  no  method  ever  long  remains  un- 


40 


MAKING    THE    RIGHT     START 


changed;  the  efficient  man  is  always  growing-,  changing, 
progressing.  In  other  words,  the  efficient  man  works 
through  a  philosophy,  which  is  a  state  of  mind,  not  a  plan, 
system,  or  method. 

He  lays  all  knowledge  and  experience  under  tribute; 
thus  he  absorbs  all  that  is  true  in  the  experience  of  the 
rule-of-thumb  man,  and  all  that  is  practical  in  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  practical  man,  and  goes  beyond  either  to  give 
the  results  order  and  proper  relationships  and  values. 

Common  Sense  and  Science 

The  greatest  danger  with  the  scientist  in  business,  is 
that  he  may  get  to  playing  chess  with  business.  He  be- 
comes so  absorbed  in  the  intellectual  problems  of  the 
game  that  he  forgets  to  ask,  "What's  the  use?"  and  to 
cash  in  as  he  goes  along.  It  may  be  worth  while  for  a 
man  to  be  able  to  square  a  circle  or  to  think  in  terms  of 
the  fourth  dimension  or  answer  the  riddle  of  the  Sphinx, 
but  before  I  try  to  do  it,  I  ask  myself,  "What's  the  use?" 
And  having  my  answer,  I  must  decide,  after  I  have 
thought  upon  it,  whether  it  is  worth  while. 

Common  sense  gives  power  to  knowledge  and  makes 
wisdom  in  the  process.  Any  man  may  have  sense  in  that 
he  is  logical  and  careful  and  conservative  and  looks  on  all 
sides  of  a  problem  and  modestly  feels  his  unpreparedness 
to  answer  all  questions  at  once  and  in  the  final  analysis, 
yet  remains  a  thinking  machine.  He  must  have  this  com- 
mon sense,  the  sense  that  keeps  him  close  to  earth,  that 
keeps  his  feet  on  the  ground  and  sensitive  to  the  fact  that 
the  world  is  moving  every  second  and  calling  for  some- 
thing worth  while  to  be  done  today. 

Common  sense  is  to  learning  what  the  alloy  is  to  gold 
— it  hardens  it — making  it  usable  in  everyday  life. 

The   rule-of-thuml)   butcher   keeps   his   meat    on    the 


EFFICIENCY    AND     ITS    APPLICATIONS 


41 


block  where  the  flies  and  the  grimy  fingers  of  Mrs.  Polin- 
ski  render  it  unfit  for  consumption.  The  practical  butcher 
keeps  his  meat  in  a  refrigerator,  taking  it  out  to  show  the 
customer,  and  meanwhile  "keeping  it  clean  and  at  the 
right  temperature."  The  scientific  butcher  places  his 
meat  under  glass  in  a  showcase,  into  which  he  has  run  his 
refrigerating  pipes,  and  applies  the  common  sense  of 
scientific  salesmanship  by  keeping  the  meat  clean,  cold, 
and  in  an  attractive  view. 

Education  for  Efficiency 

We  find  education  in  a  bad  way  from  a  too  practical 
educational  tendency  of  the  educator,  who  has  systema- 
tized his  function  with  respect  to  his  own  work  and  not 
humanized 'his  function  with  respect  to  his  social  obliga- 
tions. 

Education  should  help  a  man  to  think,  to  be  orderly 
and  logical  in  his  processes  of  thought,  to  be  accurate  in 
his  observations  and  discriminating  in  his  judgments,  and 
should  fit  men  to  meet  the  requirements  of  a  complete 
life.*  It  is  notorious  that  our  educational  system  has  failed 
to  do  this  thing  for  our  people.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  trained 
reasoning  now  plays  an  increasing  part  in  many  of  the 
processes  of  business,  engineering,  and  accounting,  but  a 
very  small  part  in  distribution. 

As  men  of  scientific  training  come  into  the  managerial 
positions  we  notice  an  absolutely  new  force  at  work  in  an 
entirely  different  way,  accurate  thinking,  working  through 
simple  systems  to  predetermined  and  valuable  results. 

So  we  need  something  deeper,   wider,   more  funda- 


•  "There  are  said  to  be  about  2,000,000  boys  and  girls  in  the  United  States 
between  fourteen  and  sixteen  years  of  age  out  of  school,  and  for  the  most  part  at 
work  in  gainful  occupations.  .  .  .  They  leave  school  by  the  end  of  the  sixth 
grade.  .  .  .  Half  of  all  the  children  who  enter  American  schools  so,  leave  them, 
uneducated,  undisciplined,  undirected." — H.  E.  Miles,  Chairman  Committee  on 
Industrial  Education,  National  Association  of  Manufacturers,  Bulletin  34. 


42 


MAKING    THE    RIGHT    START 


mental,  of  more  general  application,  than  the  inexpert 
testimony  of  the  individual  experience  or  even  that  of  a 
village,  a  trade,  or  an  industry.  We  must  go  after  general 
experiences  and  their  ruling  laws;  then  we  can  get  in  line 
with  nature.  We  must  organize  this  common  sense.  Find 
out  what  is  not  common  to  all  real  experience,  and  what 
is  not  sense  at  all  if  tested  by  the  standard  of  reality. 
Then  we  shall  have  a  science,  as  Huxley  pointed  out. 

When  we  talk  about  the  great  fundamentals  of  our 
national  existence,  we  must  get  away  from  the  rule-of- 
thumb  and  the  merely  practical,  although  we  shall  have 
to  examine  all  fundamentals  in  the  light  of  their  effect  on 
the  individual. 

The  man  must  get  in  tune  with  the  times  for  the  times 
will  not  get  in  tune  with  the  man. 

The  man  who  does  not  every  now  and  then  go  down 
to  the  foundations  of  his  business,  to  the  fundamentals  of 
his  personal  capacity  and  performances  to  find  out  what 
he  has  of  real  value,  and  to  look  himself  squarely  in  the 
face,  is  playing  luck  against  law. 


CHAPTER     III 

EFFICIENCY  AND  ITS  PROBLEMS 

Control  of  thinking  is  of  the  very  £rst  importance,  be- 
cause it  is  control  of  causes;  and  control  of  causes  is  con- 
trol of  consequences,  which  are  the  result  of  those  causes. 

— A.  M.  Crane. 

"Where  Are  We  At?" 

It  was  ungrammatical,  but  none  the  less  eminently 
scientific,  for  the  Southern  congressman  to  ask:  "Gentle- 
men, where  are  we  at?" 

Before  we  start  to  specialize  on  the  details  of  how  to 
work  efficiently,  and,  therefore,  before  we  start  to  do  any- 
thing, it  is  important  that  we  find  out  what  we  are  and 
where  we  are — get  our  right  place  and  function  fixed  in 
the  Great  Scheme  of  Things  as  They  Are. 

We  leave  too  much  to  majorities;  we  follow  them  too 
blindly.  Just  because  a  hundred  men  said  advertising 
didn't  pay,  couldn't  make  the  assertion  true  even  of  the 
business  in  which  they  might  be  engaged  but  should  only 
cause  inquiry  into  why  the  particular  adverti'sing  didn't 
pay,  or  if,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  didn't. 

Thought  as  a  World  Force 

Great  movements  always  start  in  the  minds  and  hearts 
of  a  few  who  remain  for  a  time  obscure  and  unknown,  for 
all  great  changes  of  thought  and  morals  come  from  the 
top — from  the  thinkers.  We  call  them  radicals  and 
theorists,  but  they  make  the  world  move,  because  they 
compel  the  world  to  think. 

Slavery  was  an  economic  issue  as  well  as  a  humani- 

43 


44 


MAKING    THE    RIGHT     START 


tarian  principle.  It  took  the  oratory  of  a  Phillips  on  the 
platform,  the  fanaticism  of  a  Sumner  in  the  Senate,  the 
pen  of  a  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  in  fiction,  the  sagacity  of 
a  Lincoln  in  politics  to  make  the  issue  plain  to  the  average 
men  and  women  of  the  nation.  The  nation  had  to  be 
taught  how  to  think  right  about  slavery  before  it  was 
ready  to  act  right  about  slavery. 

Present  Day  Problems 

Scientific  management  has  been  applied  to  factory 
conditions  for  thirty  years.  Yet  the  public  awakened  to 
its  real  social  significance  only  when  the  rate  hearings 
before  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission  showed 
what  disaster  was  bred  by  the  rule-of-thumb  methods  of 
practical  railroad  men  who  worked  without  a  vision  of  the 
morrow. 

Our  problems  today  are  the  humanizing  of  law,  re- 
ligion, tariff,  currency,  and  business,  for  the  same  reasons. 
We  must  find  out  something  about  the  man-value  of  these 
things. 

We  have  always  looked  to  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  as  the  covenant  that  this  land  would  be 
every  man's  land  of  justice,  plenty,  and  equal  opportunity 
and  that  we  should  not  expect  to  accept  these  things  as 
a  largess  from  a  man,  or  a  class. 

Too  Much  Lawyer-Law 

The  final  solution  of  the  great  national  problems  con- 
fronting us  today  lies  in  the  creation  of  new  valuations  to 
fit  American  conditions.  The  terms  in  which  Europe 
thinks  will  not  do  for  us,  because  we  have  different  things 
to  think  about.     Europe  still  thinks  of  great  individuals. 

We  must  think  in  results  to  men. 

Law  in  this  country  is  made  too  much  for  lawyers  by 


EFFICIENCY    AND     ITS     PROBLEMS 


45 


lawyers,  for  we  have  more  law  than  any  other  five  coun- 
tries on  the  face  of  the  globe,  with  the  consequence  that 
Public  Opinion  remains  the  only  safeguard  of  Justice. 
Laws  will  change  as  man  progresses,  because  Justice  must 
not  be  strangled  by  the  subtle  technicalities  of  the  lawyer 
who  conventionalizes  Justice  into  a  system.  We  will  go 
back  to  first  principles  and  discard  that  which  does  not 
work. 

Religious  Problems 

Religion  is  in  a  state  of  change  and  flux.  Man 
naturally  fights  the  stained-glass  attitude  of  the  church. 
He  will  again  humanize  the  church  because  he  needs 
religion. 

Tariff  Problems 

The  tariff  costs  the  country  too  much,  but  the  settle- 
ment will  have  to  be  made  on  a  scientific  basis  from  which 
we  shall  find  out  the  truth  about  the  operation  of  the 
tariff.  A  permanent  tariff  commission,  like  the  Interstate 
Commerce  Commission,  is  a  scientific  method.  We  shall 
have  to  use  thinking  men  in  tune  with  the  times,  who  will 
get  all  the  facts  without  reference  to  this  or  that  economic 
theory  of  a  different  civilization,  to  the  desire  of  this  or 
that  industry  or  interest,  or  to  what  may  be  considered 
political  expediency.  Then,  when  the  facts  are  known, 
we  shall  solve  the  problem  and  strive  to  do  what  is  in 
harmony  with  the  laws  of  an  efficient  national  progress. 

Labor  Problems 

Labor  does  not  get  its  just  share  of  the  profits  because 
capital  does  not  get  the  full  benefit  of  the  power  of  the 
worker,  and  society  is  not  receiving  its  equity  from  either. 
There  is  too  much  waste. 


46  MAKING    THE    RIGHT    START 

Unions  place  a  premium  on  wasting  man-power,  by 
not  using  it  at  a  high  efficiency.  The  coat-makers'  union 
raises  wages,  the  butchers',  the  bakers',  and  the  candle- 
stick makers'  unions  raise  theirs;  the  coat-maker  ultimately 
pays  out  much  of  his  raise  in  the  increased  cost  of  meat  and 
bread  demanded  by  the  butchers'  and  bakers'  unions,  and 
capital  gets  an  added  price,  interest,  rent,  and  so  forth,  to 
get  back  what  it  cost. 

Capital  pays  in  the  first  place,  the  bill  for  lack  of  educa- 
tion, lack  of  right  thinking,  the  bad  training  (which,  by 
the  way,  the  consumer,  including  both  the  capitalist  and 
unionist,  pays  ultimately)  when  the  union  fixes  its  rates  of 
pay  on  the  average  of  inefficiency  instead  of  the  average 
of  efficiency. 

Capital  always  has  the  last  and  most  effective  chance  to 
get  its  money  back. 

Problems  in  Politics 

In  politics  we  think  not  enough  of  the  nation,  but  too 
much  of  the  Fourth  Precinct  of  the  Second  Ward  of  the 
City  of  Piffleberg.  For  we  can't  get  away  from  our  per- 
sonal experience  standards  in  politics  any  more  than  we  do 
in  business.  The  most  of  us  will  always  think  as  Piffleberg- 
ers,  but  if  some  learn  the  principle  of  separating  our  im- 
portant national  issues  from  merely  local  issues,  many  will 
learn  not  to  vote  for  a  man  for  President  just  because  he 
happens  to  be  on  the  same  ticket  as  their  choice  for  dog 
catcher,  or  vice  versa. 

The  New  Order  in  the  Business  World 

In  business  practice  we  have  found  that  the  old  policy 
of  "live  and  let  live"  does  not  work  when  it  means  letting 
the  unfit  live  at  the  same  price  as  the  fit. 

In  a  way  the  attitude  of  the  American  bvjsiness  man 


1 


EFFICIENCY    AND    ITS     PROBLEMS 


47 


has  been  changing-.  A  few  years  ago  business  was  a  go- 
as-you-please  race.  The  young  man  started  in  business 
without  special  preparation  because  "business  education 
was  a  theory."  Everybody  was  expected  to  sow  a  few 
commercial  wild  oats  to  make  one  or  more  fairly  ethical 
business  failures.  The  young  man  generally  went  into  a 
business  because  he  "supposed  there  was  money  in  it" 
which  looked  fairly  easy  to  get.  Often  he  dashed  from 
the  retail  grocery  business  to  grain  brokerage,  from  that 
to  wagon  making,  or  to  take  a  flier  in  "gent's  furnish- 
ings," and  so  on  until  "he  found  himself."  We  thought  as 
a  child  he  had  to  have  measles,  mumps,  whooping  cough, 
and  chicken-pox,  and  so  we  excused  these  business 
antics  as  the  "infant  diseases"  of  his  commercial  life. 

After  a  long  agitation  by  thinking  men,  the  business 
world  woke  up,  discovered  that  it  cost  too  much  in  failure 
and  unrest  to  put  these  men  through  this  try-and-fail 
course  of  training;  others  said  it  was  useless  anyhow,  and 
our  co-operative  credit  associations  and  bankruptcy  laws 
have  greatly  lessened  the  evil.  We  do  not  now  think 
"infant  diseases"  necessary  in  the  home,  either. 

But  in  hiring  employes  we  continue  the  hire-and-fire, 
try-and-fail  method. 


CHAPTER     IV 

EFFICIENCY  AND  ITS  STANDARDS 

Standards  of  Business  Efficiency 

We  are  creating  some  new  standards  of  business  effi- 
ciency by  a  scientific  analysis  of  old  business  experience. 
We  have  found  that  it  is  very  important  to  determine 
what  a  man  knows  about  his  business  because  we  learned 
that  what  he  doesn't  know  is  responsible  for  sixty  per 
cent  of  the  failures. 

What  should  he  know?  How  should  we  measure  the 
efficiency  of  his  knowledge  before  the  sheriff  slips  in  with 
his  appraisements?  The  requirements  are  being  stan- 
dardized in  a  haphazard  way  by  our  credit  agencies,  but, 
working  true  to  nature's  anti-waste  law,  we  must  be  more 
scientific  in  our  methods. 

What  a  bookkeeper  knows  about  the  best  way  to  get 
at  all  the  facts  and  figures  of  our  business,  is  the  true 
measure  of  his  value  to  us.  How  shall  we  measure  his  effi- 
ciency before  we  let  him  "try  the  work"  to  find  out? 

The  Basic  Principles  of  Efficiency 

Efficient  standards  are  obtainable  and  workable  be- 
cause anything  that  should  be  done,  can  be  done. 

Reduced  to  a  one-two-three  basis,  then,  the  present 
situation  finds  the  more  efficient  managers  recognizing 
and  applying  certain  fundamental  principles: 

First — Find  the  specific  purpose  of  a  thing  or  an  act. 

Second — Establish  the  real  facts  about  our  ex- 
periences. 

48 


EFFICIENCY    AND    ITS    STANDARDS 


49 


Third — Establish  the  real  facts  about  the  experiences 
of  others. 

Fourth — Think  in  facts,  not  impressions  or  gossip. 

Fifth — Arrange  the  facts  in  related  groups;  for  in- 
stance, facts  about  the  functions  of  selling  and  advertising, 
office,  and  factory  work. 

Sixth — Get  the  true  relations  and  correlations  of  these 
various  classes  of  facts. 

Seventh — Record  the  data  and  develop  the  data. 

Eighth — Harmonize  a  plan  of  action. 

A  National  Business  Bureau 

As  this  is  being  written,  an  agitation  is  developing 
among  the  business  men  of  America,  in  favor  of  a  Federal 
Bureau  of  Business  Practice,  which  will  become  a  part  of 
the  Department  of  Commerce. 

There  is  no  reason  why  such  a  bureau  should  not  be 
established,  doing  in  a  constructive,  developing  way  for 
the  business  man,  what  the  Department  of  Agriculture*  is 
doing  for  the  farmer  or  the  Department  of  Labor  for  the 
laboring  man. 

Such  an  idea  naturally  appeals  to  the  open-minded 
business  man,  because  he  reahzes  that  what  he  lacks  is  the 
necessary  amount  of  general  facts  upon  which  to  base 
specific  judgment.  He  recognizes  that  his  own  experi- 
ence is  not  sufKcient.  Such  a  Federal  Bureau  would 
bring  together  the  experiences  of  thousands  of  men  and 
they  could  do  so  without  any  increase  in  the  amount  of 
information  they  are  obtaining  now  for  other  purposes. 

Thus  we  get  at  the  best  way  to  live  and  work  whether 


*  The  Department  of  Agriculture,  U.  S.  Government,  quite  recently  estab- 
lished an  Office  of  Markets  for  the  study  of  basic  principles  involved  in  this 
problem— i.e.,  marketing  and  distributing  for  a  wide  dissemination  of  information 
relating  to  it  and  for  the  demonstration  of  such  methods  as  may  seem  to  promise 
the  best  results.— W.  H.  Kerr,  of  the  Office  of  Markets,  Department  of  Agricul- 
ture (System  Magazine,  June,  1914). 


50  MAKING    THE    RIGHT    START 

it  be  as  an  individual,  as  a  social  unit,  a  one-man  concern, 
or  in  a  ten-thousand-man  octopus.  Viewed  from  this 
angle,  we  may  realize  that  our  attitude  of  mind  and  our 
method  of  thought  are  vital  to  our  very  existence.  It 
may  be  easy  to  think.  It  may  be  easy  to  get  experiences 
of  others  and  ourselves.  It  will  be  hard  to  find  the  real 
facts  and  most  difficult  to  harmonize  them  into  a  plan  of 
action,  because  we  must  be  scientifically  accurate  in  our 
methods.  We  must  be  very  careful,  as  the  great  French- 
man once  said,  "lest  we  find  what  we  are  looking  for," 
the  pitfall  of  investigators.  We  must  have  some  sort  of 
mental  scales  or  standards  by  which  to  test  the  real  use- 
value  of  the  facts  which  influence  our  judgments  and 
actions. 

The  Luck  Theory 

"Why  all  this  trouble?"  asks  the  practical  man.  "I 
take  life  as  I  find  it;  I've  been  pretty  lucky." 

Luck  is  not  an  efficiency  principle,  for,  contrary  to  the 
belief  of  many,  things  do  not  "just  happen." 

This  luck  theory  of  life  is  an  example  of  the  im- 
portance of  right  thinking.  Good  luck  is  a  matter  of  law. 
No  man  or  woman  succeeds  who  does  not,  consciously  or 
unconsciously,  obey  natural  laws. 

The  man  who  succeeds  is  called  "lucky."  That  is  but 
a  half  truth.  He  swims  with  the  tide  of  the  law,  he  has 
been  started  right.  Some  day  more  of  us  will  start  our- 
selves and  our  children  right. 

The  man  who  was  born  "lucky"  and  finds  out  why,  is 
a  genius  like  Paderewski  instead  of  a  natural  musical 
prodigy  like  "Blind  Tom."    Which  would  you  rather  be? 

The  man  who  neither  swims  with  the  tide,  nor  knows 
there  is  a  tide  is  our  familiar  form  of  failure.  The  suc- 
cessful man  is  not  lucky,  the  failure  is  not  unlucky,  how- 


EFFICIENCY    AND    ITS    STANDARDS 


51 


ever,  because  the  law  worked  any  differently  for  the  one 
than  it  did  for  the  other. 

Carried  to  its  logical  conclusion  the  luck  theory  of  life 
makes  predestination  the  only  hope  and  leads  us  into  a 
blind  alley  of  fatalism.  There  is  no  use  in  anything.  The 
belief  in  a  capricious  goddess  of  Luck  "makes  cowards  of 
us  all,"  for  we  fear  that  she  may  desert  us;  she  makes  us 
dull  and  lazy,  for  there  cannot  possibly  be  any  use  in  pre- 
paring to  do  anything,  to  study  anything,  for  fickle  Luck 
may  go  against  us. 

The  Success  Principle 

Success  doesn't  happen;  neither  does  failure.  Both 
are  the  result  of  laws  as  rigid  as  those  of  the  Medes  and 
Persians. 

Franklin  found  the  principle  of  success  misnamed  the 
Luck  Principle,  He  applies  this  principle  of  success,  as 
he  tells  us  in  his  autobiography. 

The  man  who  takes  care  of  the  pennies — not  the 
copper  ones,  but  the  penny  wasting  actions — who  buys  on 
a  penny  basis,  who  sells  on  a  penny  basis,  and  who  knows 
what  he  is  doing,  is  the  man  who  commands  luck. 

The  manager  of  a  delivery  department  who  cut  out 
the  extra  motions  in  wrapping  bundles,  cut  China  packers 
from  twelve  to  four;  the  bookkeeper  who  first  used  a  line 
for  the  penny  ciphers  in  all  amounts  in  his  bookkeeping, 
cut  out  one-fifth  the  motions  in  his  work;  and  the  man  who 
had  his  books  ruled  for  unit  columns  and  cut  out  the  line 
saved  more  time  and  money;  the  advertising  manager 
who  taught  the  girls  in  a  mailing  department  how  to  fold 
and  enclose  circulars  with  two  fewer  motions,  increased 
the  output  eleven  per  cent.  Such  things  are  what  make 
"lucky"  men. 

Thus  does  the  new  gospel  of  efficiency  make  for  greater 


52  MAKING    THE    RIGHT    START 

faith  in  the  eternal  reign  of  law,  and  a  more  serene  confi- 
dence in  the  surety  of  an  adequate  reward. 

The  Gospel  of  Efficiency 

The  gospel  of  efficiency  will  meet  human  needs  better 
than  they  have  ever  been  met,  because  it  is  dedicated  to 
finding  out  what  those  needs  really  are  and  how  to  use 
the  man-power  of  the  world  to  minister  to  them. 

The  rule-of-thumb  type  says,  "It  will  not  work."  The 
practical  man  says,  "What's  the  use  of  upsetting  things?" 
Nature  makes  it  work,  is  the  answer  to  the  first.  Things 
are  already  upset,  is  the  answer  to  the  second. 

These  men,  some  honest  and  others  merely  dull,  are 
forces  with  which  efficiency  must  reckon.  Efficiency 
standards  will  always  be  obnoxious  to  the  shirker  who 
doesn't  want  to  be  compelled  to  show  what  he  does.  He 
is  the  "commonplace  person"  of  whom  Sir  Arthur  Helps 
said:  "They  live  by  delay,  believe  in  it,  hope  for  it,  pray 
for  it." 

The  man  with  a  pull,  and  every  concern  has  one  or 
several,  will  object,  because  his  record  goes  down  in  black 
and  white  and  his  "pull"  must  work  in  the  sight  of  all 
men. 

The  union  man,  who  talks  loudest  about  the  "right 
of  labor"  as  something  different  from  the  rights  of  any 
one  else,  scorns  efficiency  because  he  wants  to  make  work 
for  as  many  as  he  can,  at  as  big  wages  as  he  can,  without 
reference  to  production. 

The  clerk,  who  has  good  reason  to  be  afraid  he'll  be 
fired  when  two  clerks  can  do  the  work  of  three,  declares 
it  to  be  "unfair." 

The  manager  who  holds  his  job  by  divine  right  of  pro- 
motion and  comparison  with  mediocrity,  will  dismiss  it  as 
"unpractical." 


1 


EFFICIENCY    AND    ITS     STANDARDS 


53 


The  Cult  of  the  Incompetent 

In  the  aggregate  these  types  form  that  cult  of  incom- 
petents which  is  organized  in  business  of  all  kinds,  in 
society,  in  government,  and  yet  is  an  organization  with- 
out conscious  membership. 

The  motto  of  the  cult  of  the  incompetent  is,  "The 
good  old  ways  forever."  These  incompetents  are  in  force 
in  every  organization.  They  listen  but  do  not  act — they 
are  the  paper  pushers — they  are  the  fellows  who  say,  "It's 
all  right  in  theory,  but  it  won't  work" — they  are  the  men 
who  resent  "new  fangled  ideas,"  because  they  mean 
change.  The  cult  of  the  incompetents  is  the  only  order  to 
which  men  elect  themselves  yet  never  admit  they  are 
members. 

It  is  invincible. 

Such  a  view  is  human  and  to  be  expected  from  those 
who  have  not  been  taught  to  think  in  the  right  way. 

When  we  show  the  worker  how  to  do  more,  be  more, 
and  get  more,  and  the  manager  how  to  raise  wages  and 
decrease  costs,  the  scorn  of  new  ideas  will  turn  to 
discipleship.  If  it  doesn't,  then  the  business  is  well  rid  of 
(lead  wood  which  is  not  thinking  of  the  business  but  of 
its  job. 

Efficiency  Obstacles 

In  dealing  with  the  larger  problems  of  commercial,  of 
political,  and  of  economic  efficiency,  as  they  relate  to  the 
greater  interests  of  business  and  society,  it  is  almost  im- 
possible for  a  business  man  to  be  accounted  "safe" 
unless  he  subscribes  to  the  doctrines  of  a  class  that  has 
already  obtained  its  share  of  the  world's  riches  and  now 
wants  things  left  alone  while  it  enjoys  these  riches.  Any- 
one who  witnessed  the  browbeating  and  blackguarding 
tactics  of  the  attorneys  for  the  railroads  in  the  rate  case 


54 


MAKING    THE    RIGHT    START 


hearings  before  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission  will 
understand  how  this  attitude  appears  in  practice. 

This  attitude,  however,  need  not  discourage  us,  be- 
cause it  has  always  been  the  same  and  must  be  accepted 
as  the  part  of  the  human  data  to  be  considered  in  estab- 
lishing greater  efficiencies. 

The  worker  will  have  to  be  taught  to  do  the  best 
thing  in  the  best  way;  and  the  employer  taught  that  it 
will  not  pay  to  cut  wages  the  instant  skilled  operators, 
clerks,  and  heads  of  departments  make  more  than  he  has 
paid  mediocrity.  This  gospel  calls  for  two  benefits — one 
to  the  boss;  the  other  to  the  worker. 

Efficiency  Standards 

We — society,  worker,  and  employer  alike — must  re- 
alize that  standards  of  efficiency,  scientifically  ascertained 
and  fixed,  are  coming  into  business  to  benefit  all  of  us. 
In  the  factory  where  the  collapse  of  the  bonus  system  has 
been  due  to  proprietors  who  failed  to  realize  that  brains 
are  a  necessary  preliminary  to  thinking,  where  bonuses 
were  paid  by  false  standards  set  by  incompetent  rate- 
fixers,  a  new  conception  is  making  its  way. 

The  time-clock  standards  of  judging  the  work  of  office 
help  are  failures  and  never  were  anything  but  makeshift 
disciplinary  measures  at  best. 

Office  men  and  managers  should  be  judged  by  the 
value  of  what  they  produce — not  alone  by  their  hours  of 
labor  or  their  length  of  service.  Promotions  should  go  by 
recorded  efficiencies  and  not  by  the  calendar. 

Imagine,  if  you  can,  what  would  happen  to  German 
commercial  efficiency  if  men  were  promoted  on  length  in- 
stead of  quality  of  service.  Even  the  Japanese  business 
men  hold  examinations  before  making  promotions. 

Why  did  you  give  that  stenographer  a  raise?    Because 


EFFICIENCY    AND    ITS     STANDARDS  55 

she  would  leave?  Maybe  that  would  be  the  best  thing  that 
could  happen.  Why  did  you  refuse  that  clerk  a  raise? 
Do  you  know  what  he  is  doing  and  how  well  he  is  doing 
it?  His  actual  value  to  the  business  may  be  three  times 
that  of  the  stenographer. 

The  Lack  of  Efficiency  Requirements 

The  lack  of  proper  standards  by  which  to  value  men 
has  produced  friction  and  has  resulted  in  the  knocker  and 
the  chronic  sorehead.  Pretty  motto  cards  will  not  remedy 
that  evil,  but  fair  dealing  with  man's  power  will.  The 
average  of  human  nature  is  high  enough  for  that. 

The  indifference  of  clerks,  the  scientific  soldiering  by 
which  whole  groups  of  workers  made  a  very  little  work 
go  a  very  great  way,  have  been  met  by  the  childish  rem- 
edy of  deliberately  undermanning  departments.  This  has 
created  that  other  evil,  night-work,  a  flaring  sign  of  inefifi- 
ciency  in  departmental  management.  Make  no  mistake, 
we  need  thinking  and  study  at  the  managerial  end  of 
business. 

For,  "the  modern  shop  must  be  a  schoolhouse  and  the 
manager  one  of  its  pupils,"  warned  Hon.  William  C. 
Redfield.  An  efficiency  engineer  on  one  occasion,  told  a 
group  of  business  men:  "I  have  no  trouble  in  getting  the 
factory  men  to  accept  efficiency;  it  is  the  managers  who 
make  the  trouble.  The  managers  want  to  get  better  re- 
sults their  way.  They  don't  want  to  learn  new  ways 
which  point  to  their  inefficiency  of  management  as  the 
causes  of  waste." 

The  lack  of  sufficient  mechanical  equipment  for  the 
handling  of  accounts  and  statistics  in  our  large  corpora- 
tions, the  ignorance  of  sales-making  data  by  salesmen,  the 
lack  of  scientific  data  as  a  basis  of  credit,  the  waste  in  our 
advertising  expenditures,  the  myopic  disregard  of  the  call 


56  MAKING    THE    RIGHT    START 

for  adequate  records  of  the  real  activities  of  the  business, 
the  ready  sneer  of  managers  for  the  specialist  who  has  had 
experience  in  scientific  measurements  of  man's  powers — 
all  constitute  that  lack  of  open-mindedness  and  foresight 
which  produces  the  commercial  inefficiency,  and  which 
gives  color  to  the  workability  of  the  luck  theory  of  human 
life. 

The  Use  of  Efficiency  Standards 

The  calm  belief  that  "our  business  is  different"  is 
probably  one  of  the  most  prolific  reasons  for  failure  and 
inefficiency.  In  what  concrete  ways,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
are  your  business  conditions  different?  Think  it  over 
quietly — and  list  them  carefully. 

A  certain  manufacturer  had  an  employment  depart- 
ment costing  him  over  $6,000  a  year.  It  cost  him  an 
average  of  $9.15  each,  besides  wages,  to  get  and  hold  an 
employe  an  average  of  one  month.  The  factory  hired 
and  fired  1,341  men  in  a  single  year,  at  a  cost  of  nearly 
$12,600.  The  introduction  of  a  foreman's  school  with 
expert  rate  and  task  setters  lessened  the  firing  by  nearly 
60  per  cent — but  the  superintendent  had  to  be  discharged 
before  the  "fool  ideas"  could  be  put  into  effect. 

Another  case  in  New  York  where  stenographers  were 
tested  according  to  speed  standards  and  the  special  re- 
quirements of  the  different  departments,  stenographers 
were  paid  18  per  cent  more  than  the  average  elsewhere 
but  were  producing  30  per  cent  more  work.  Yet  in  the 
average  office  "a  stenographer  is  a  stenographer."  That 
it  isn't  true  makes  no  difference,  except  in  the  pay-roll. 

Since  the  Curtis  Publishing  Company  adopted  scien- 
tific methods  in  hiring,  testing,  and  teaching  stenog- 
raphers the  cost  of  getting  a  competent  one  has  gone 
down  from  $100  to  a  little  over  nine  dollars  apiece. 


EFFICIENCY    AND     ITS     STANDARDS 


57 


Standardized  Efficiency 

There  is  no  reason  why  every  job  in  any  business 
should  not  he  standardized,  i.  c,  a  best  way  developed  for 
measuring  the  efficiency  of  the  man  who  is  filling-  it,  just 
as  there  is  no  reason  why  every  merchant  should  not  be 
able  to  appraise  his  own  business  in  relation  to  every  other 
in  the  community,  and  find  accurate  relationships  between 
his  experience  and  the  common  experience.  Yet  how 
can  we  be  honest  with  ourselves  or  with  others  unless  we 
know  the  truth  of  what  we  see? 

It  does  not  matter  how  persistent  may  be  the  profit- 
able results  of  any  line  of  work,  action,  or  thought  to  the 
man  who  does  not  know  why.  He  is  tottering  on  the  edge 
of  a  precipice — not  knowing  what  lapse  of  skill  or  time 
may  force  him  over.  Efficiency  prefers  to  build  a  fence  at 
the  top  of  that  precipice  instead  of  a  hospital  at  the 
bottom  of  it. 

We  plant  the  acorn  that  we  may  saw  the  oak  a  gen- 
eration hence;  a  few  weeks  produces  a  squash.  Do  we  not 
plant  a  lot  of  squash  seeds  and  then  look  for  oaks? 

The  Man  and  the  Vision 

The  employe  or  the  employer  can  adopt  the  today  or 
the  day-after-tomorrow  attitude  toward  his  work  or  his 
business.  If  a  man  works  for  today  only,  he  can  always 
think  about  something  else  than  his  plan  and  purpose;  if 
he  works  for  tomorrow  he  will  have  a  chance  to  think 
about  nothing  else.  Once  I  said  to  a  friend  of  mine: 
"This  job  isn't  big  enough  for  you";  and  his  answer  was, 
"I'll  make  it  fit."  He  did.  He  is  now  the  president,  but 
he  looks  after  the  advertising,  his  old  work. 

He  had  a  vision  and  was  loyal  to  it. 

I  never  forgot  that  lesson,  for  in  after  years  it  came  to 
me  in  a  lesser  way,  to  gain  a  vision  of  my  relationship  to  a 


58 


MAKING    THE    RIGHT    START 


business,  and  that  memory  helped  me  to  remain  loyal  to 
that  vision  and  to  realize  it  against  predictions  of  failure, 
the  sneers  of  the  incompetents,  and  even  the  passive  hos- 
tility of  a  general  manager. 

Let  the  man  learn  to  see  his  work,  as  Balzac  said:  "In 
its  roots  and  products;  in  the  past  which  begot  it,  in  the 
present  when  it  is  manifested,  and  in  the  future  when  it 
develops." 

When  the  cost-keeper  has  a  chance  to  introduce  a 
time-saving  method  which  has  proved  successful  else- 
where, and  meets  it  with  "Does  that  fit  into  my  system?" — 
he  works  by  tradition — not  by  standards — and  is  not 
scientific.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  judges  the  known  re- 
sults of  his  system,  he  is  scientific,  and  I  think  you  will 
agree  with  me,  a  safer  and  more  practical  guide  for  any 
business. 

What  Will  We  Do  With  It  ? 

Marshalling  the  results  of  our  deepest  researches  into 
the  facts  of  business  progress,  its  laws,  and  its  energies, 
we  are  at  last  face  to  face  with  human  nature  in  man,  and 
with  him  collectively  as  the  world. 

What  are  we  going  to  do  with  the  man? 

We  must  rationalize  this  topsy-turvy  world  of  our 
senses  and  knowledge,  for  we  must  work  from  a  deep  and 
abiding  sense  of  the  likeness  of  all  human  experience.  We 
need  a  gospel,  for  we  are  human,  and  we  need  to  have  it 
set  down  in  front  of  us  that  we  may  from  time  to  time  go 
back  to  it  to  refresh  our  beliefs  and  refurbish  our  ideals. 
We  need  to  be  reminded  now  and  then  that  the  world  has 
grown  beyond  men  to  Man,  that  we  must  measure  our 
performances  and  our  growth  by  the  world's  yardstick  of 
thought  and  powers,  not  alone  by  our  little  pile  of  dollars 
and  dimes. 


EFFICIENCY    AND    ITS     STANDARDS 


59 


So  the  new  gospel  shall  take  for  a  part  of  its  creed 
some  things  true  to  what  a  friend  of  mine  calls  his  philoso- 
phy of  Americanism: 

To  each  man  according  to  his  powers. 

To  each  place  according  to  its  requirements — and  no 
more  square  pegs  in  round  holes. 

We  shall  deal  in  scientific  facts  and  figures,  not  in  clair- 
voyance or  second-sight;  we  shall  aim  to  cut  out  the 
"bluff,"  and  the  cant  because  we  shall  know  what  we  can 
do  and  be  sure  that  we  shall  get  it  to  do. 

We  shall  cultivate  Reason  instead  of  the  Big  Stick  in 
the  Manager's  Office.  We  will  keep  our  eyes  on  the 
future,  and  leave  the  Dead  to  bury  its  dead. 

We  shall  organize  for  co-operation  with  all  the  best 
powers  of  ourselves,  and  with  all  the  best  in  all  others. 

We  must  believe  that  men  will  win  here  and  not  have 
to  die  to  find  out. 

We  believe  that  the  man  who  believes,  cares  more  for 
the  results,  than  how  much  a  day.  The  ideal  is  to  do  all 
that  one  can  in  the  best  way  that  one  can. 


PART  II 

What's  The   Use? 


I 


CHAPTER    V 

SOME    BUSINESS    POLICIES 

All  the  revolution  that  mankind  is  yearning  for  is  fust 
this:  To  make  men  look  in  the  direction  of  their  work,  to 
emphasize  service  and  not  wages,  to  ask,  "How  much  good 
will  it  do?"  and  not,  "Does  it  pay?" — Ernest  Crosby. 

The  Book  of  Rules 

One  day  Marshall  Field  sent  a  little  brown  book  of  some 
hundred  and  twenty  pages  to  each  of  his  employes.  It  was 
called  a  "Book  of  Rules."  In  the  introduction  Mr.  Field 
said  to  his  employes :  "The  object  of  a  rule  is  not  to  abridge 
the  rights  of  anyone,  but  to  point  out  the  path  which  ex- 
perience has  taught  us  is  a  wise  one  to  follow.  The  traveler 
making  his  way  over  unaccustomed  roads  is  grateful  for  the 
guideposts  which  tell  him  the  way  to  his  destination.  He 
never  complains  when  the  sign  at  the  crossroads  tells  him 
to  go  the  uphill  way,  for  he  is  glad  the  sign  is  there,  and 
obeys  cheerfully  because  he  knows  he  is  on  the  right  road." 

This  was  a  compliance  with  the  principle  of  "Getting  the 
Right  Start,"  by  helping  the  employes  to  think  right  about 
the  discipline  necessary  in  a  big  store.  It  was  common  sense 
anticipation  of  a  most  natural  question  from  any  employe 
who  received  the  book — "What's  the  use  of  all  these  rules  ?" 
for  the  American  likes  to  pass  laws  but  he  doesn't  like  to 
obey  them. 

The  Field  "Book  of  Rules"  told  the  girls  how  to  dress, 
what  sort  of  moral  associations  employes  should  encourage 
outside  of  business,  that  a  salesman  should  say  "Men's 
goods,"  not  "Gent's  goods,"  and  so  on  through  many  con- 
crete directions  for  omitting  wrong  actions  and  methods. 

63 


64  WHAT'S    THE    USE? 

The  observance  of  these  rules  has  given  to  Field's  organiza- 
tion that  unique  character  which  makes  it  a  standard 
throughout  the  world  for  retail  management,  and,  of  course, 
profitable  to  its  owners  to  the  extent  of  millions  of  dollars  a 
year. 

The  average  successful  American  salesman,  clerk,  or 
department  head,  possesses  a  high  level  of  common  sense, 
but  at  the  same  time,  he  is  handicapped  by  a  lack  of  definite 
vision  of  the  future  in  his  work  or  business,  and  of  ideals  of 
service.    But  he  is  open-minded  to  definite  instructions. 

There  is  a  good  deal  of  "bluff"  in  the  most  of  us.  We 
are  like  those  fortunate  sailing  masters  of  which  another 
wrote,  who  crossing  unknown  seas,  by  favoring  winds  and 
the  fostering  care  of  Heaven,  finally  get  to  a  safe  harbor. 
While  on  the  deep  they  fearfully  pray,  but  with  the  ship's 
anchor  down  and  the  firm  earth  beneath  their  feet,  they 
strut  about,  boasting  of  the  skill  which  brought  them  safely 
home !  Let  them  not  forget  those  whose  ships  sailed  their 
course  but  who  never  reached  harbor. 

Waste 

Mr.  Thomas  A.  Edison,  in  the  afternoon  of  a  life  well 
spent  in  developing  the  resources  of  nature  and  in  placing 
the  eternal  kibosh  on  the  smug  complacency  of  the  grocer's 
clerk  who  prattles  that  practical  doing  is  essentially  different 
from  practical  thinking,  recently  said : 

"Wastefulness  in  commerce  is  one  of  our  weakest  spots." 
It  is  hard  to  make  the  automobile  manufacturer  think 
about  wastes  when  he  is  just  recovering  from  a  forty  per 
cent  dividend,  but  Swift  &  Company,  the  packers,  doing 
business  on  a  margin  of  three  cents  on  the  dollar,  recognize 
the  need  of  doing  so.  The  manufacturers  and  merchants  of 
tomorrow  will  have  to  get  down  to  a  closer  basis  of  figuring 
before  they  will  be  able  to  maintain  profits. 


SOME    BUSINESS    POLICIES  65 

In  the  same  interview  Mr.  Edison  said : 

"The  time  is  coming  when  every  man  who  lays  any 
claim  to  business  abiHty  will  have  to  keep  the  question  of 
waste  before  him  as  constantly  as  he  now  does  those  of 
credit,  collections,  buying,  and  selling." 

What's  the  use  ? 

Because  price  has  been  steadily  ascending  until  it  seems 
to  have  reached  its  Alpine  limit,  and  because  future  profits 
will  be  made  more  from  savings  through  scientific  store  and 
factory  management  than  from  increasing  the  bulk  of  sales. 
Saving  time,  work,  and  materials  from  waste,  simply  means 
gains  in  efficiency  which  society  will  demand  by  requiring 
greater  service  for  the  same  money. 

Society  is  beginning  to  see  dimly  its  cost  interest  in 
business.  It  is  realizing  that  all  business  methods — yes,  even 
the  business  itself — must  answer  the  crucial  inquiry — 
What's  the  use? 

Let  us  lay  down  as  a  fundamental  law  that  every  waste 
has  to  be  paid  for,  and  that  when  brain  power,  sane  faith 
and  enthusiasm,  and  physical  or  machine  energy  are  wasted, 
society  must  pay  the  bill. 

With  this  foundation,  there  is  little  in  business,  or  in  life 
for  that  matter,  which  does  not  become  of  concern  to  all 
of  us. 

Most  business  men  care  only  for  wastes  which  they  see 
on  their  own  balance  sheets.  Their  ideal  is  not  efficiency. 
but  historical  growth,  and  they  are  content  to  beat  some 
standard  which  they  have  set  by  rule-of-thumb  experience — 
to  gain  twenty  per  cent  a  year  in  sales — to  reduce  cost  one 
per  cent  a  month.  They  know  the  price  of  everything,  but 
they  know  the  real  value  of  little,  because  costs  are  set  by 
our  own  ability,  while  values  are  set  by  the  world  at  large. 

The  man  who  is  half-used  is  wasted ;  therefore  the 
necessity  for  studying  the  quality  and  possibilities  of  your 


66  WHAT'S    THE    USE? 

man-stuff.  The  machine  that  does  not  work  all  the  time  is 
wasting  its  time-efficiency.  The  wastes  in  advertising  are 
ahnost  beyond  computation.  The  wastes  in  selHng-energy 
are  self-evident  to  any  manager.  The  office  wastes,  due  to 
bad  organization  plans  and  ancient,  outworn,  rule-of-thumb 
methods,  have  for  years  been  crying  for  relief. 

Common  sense  of  the  most  elementary  kind  would  stop 
a  great  deal  of  it,  but  we  are  a  nation  of  salesmen.  We  want 
orders ;  we  feed  out  content  with  more  business ;  we  haven't 
time  to  take  from  filling  order  books  to  stop,  look,  and 
listen  to  the  expense  account ;  hence  the  smash-ups. 

Society  asks :     ■ 

"What's  the  use  of  this  condition?" 

Science  says : 

"There  is  no  use." 

The  "Let  Alone"  Policy 

Let  us  apply  externally  a  bit  of  common  sense  to  the 
matter  of  business  policies  as  they  affect  society,  and  in- 
ternally as  they  affect  individuals. 

In  an  interview  widely  quoted,  Theodore  P.  Shonts,  the 
engineer  who  gave  up  the  job  of  digging  the  Panama  Canal 
to  manage  the  Metropolitan  Street  Railway  System  of  New 
York,  made  several  and  sundry  remarks  about  Uncle  Sam's 
interference  with  railroad  freight  rates,  to  the  general  effect 
that,  "If  the  government  would  let  us  alone  we  would  get 
along  all  right." 

What  was  the  use  of  saying  such  a  thing  to  the  people 
of  the  United  States?  It  was  "injudicious,"  as  one  banker 
put  it,  and  it  was  just  a  lack  of  plain  common  sense,  judged 
by  the  standards  of  the  man  in  the  street.  Society  can  no 
more  "let  alone"  a  public  service  corporation  than  Presi- 
dent Shonts  can  "let  alone"  one  of  the  departments  of  his 
railroad. 


SOME    BUSINESS    POLICIES 


67 


If  Mr.  Shonts  didn't  know  that  the  general  public  re- 
sented the  idea  of  the  roads  increasing  their  rates,  he  didn't 
know  what  every  other  man,  woman,  and  child  in  the  United 
States  knew.  If  he  did  know  it,  then  the  speech  was  silly 
and  indefensible. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  government  cannot  let  the  rail- 
roads alone  because  the  people  will  not. 

Contrast  this  slap-in-the-face  method  of  meeting  indus- 
trial unrest  with  the  common  sense  attitude  of  Mr.  George 
W.  Perkins,  who  meets  and  recognizes  the  conflict  between 
capital  and  labor,  by  an  effort  to  find  a  middle  ground  where 
the  capitalist's  experience  with  markets  will  meet  the  work- 
ing man's  experience  with  the  problems  of  living. 

"What's  the  use  of  trying  that  plan  again,  Perkins,  the 
men  will  not  appreciate  it  ?"  a  Pittsburgh  capitalist  irritably 
remarked  when  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation's  profit- 
sharing  plan  was  first  up  to  the  men  who  made  Pittsburgh. 

"The  men  will  appreciate  it,"  Perkins  replied.  "If  we 
act  in  good  faith,  we'll  be  willing  to  make  a  show-down,  take 
the  men  into  our  confidence,  for  they  will  be  our  partners. 
If  we  are  square  with  them  in  good  times  they'll  be  square 
with  us  in  bad.  This  profit-sharing  plan  puts  an  incentive 
on  individual  initiative  and  it  will  get  the  best  there  is  in 
them.     Theoretically  it  is  right — practically  it  must  be." 

Aside  from  the  merits  of  the  plan,  which  we  are  not  dis- 
cussing, Mr.  Perkins  thus  laid  away  the  "Big  Stick"  of  the 
lockout  and  urged  the  admission  of  labor  to  an  interest  in 
the  profits,  as  provided  in  his  co-operative  plan,  which  was 
adopted  by  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation  and  the  In- 
ternational Harvester  Company. 

The  common  sense  of  the  plan  of  co-operation  rested  on 
a  knowledge  of  the  principles  at  the  bottom  of  the  true 
relationship  of  the  boss  and  the  employe.  But  the  man  out 
of  touch  with  average  minds  does  not  understand  how  these 


68  WHAT'S    THE    USE? 

minds  work.     He  has  illusions.     He  does  not  understand 
his  ignorance  to  be  the  danger. 

The  Viewpoint  of  the  Public 

This  inability  to  realize  another  man's  point  of  view  is 
not  limited  to  employers  who  are  dealing  with  employes. 
The  local  electric  light  company  sends  me  a  bill  for  so 
many  kilowatts.  How  much  satisfaction  is  it  to  the  average 
light  consumer  in  knowing  that  he  is  getting  his  kilowatts 
at  a  comparatively  low  rate,  if  his  electric  light  bills  are  too 
high?  As  the  average  citizen,  I  may  not  know  a  kilowatt 
from  a  pneumococcus.  It  is  a  common  sense  move  on  the 
part  of  some  public  service  companies  to  bill  their  service 
in  terms  intelligible  to  the  plain  man  who  pays  the  bills — 
"hours  of  service  for  electric  light"  for  instance — for  them, 
terms  do  not  count  so  much  as  facts.  The  present  method  is 
the  outgrowth  of  systems  laid  down  by  technical  men  who 
gave  no  thought  to  the  point  of  view  of  the  public — ^because 
they  didn't  have  to. 

It  doesn't  matter  to  the  man  who  pays  the  bills  how 
much  pressure  the  gas  service  maintains,  but  it  does  matter 
how  much  heat  he  gets  in  his  house  for  the  money  he  pays. 
There  is  a  good  deal  of  humbug  about  "kilowatts,"  "candle- 
powers"  and  "foot-pounds."  The  user  knows  it  as  well  as 
the  service  companies,  and  when  common  sense  enters  into 
the  descriptions  of  measurements  of  all  kinds  of  public 
service,  the  companies  will  profit  through  a  greater  public 
confidence. 

The  Policy  of  Publicity 

After  a  lot  of  unnecessary  pain  and  trouble,  the  public 
service  corporations  have  recently  assumed  an  entirely  dif- 
ferent and  common  sense  attitude  toward  the  public.  In- 
stead of  the  policy  of  "The  public  be  damned"  of  Vanderbilt 


SOME    BUSINESS    POLICIES  69 

and  the  early  Harriman,  we  have  the  policy  of  ''The  public 
be  pleased"  of  McAdoo,  of  the  Hudson  "Tubes,"  and  former 
President  Brown,  of  the  New  York  Central.  It  used  to 
be  as  hard  to  get  a  personal  statement  out  of  the  Bell  Tele- 
phone Company  as  it  was  to  get  one  from  the  Standard  Oil. 
Now  President  Vail,  of  the  American  Telephone  and  Tele- 
graph Company,  is  known  by  sight  to  thousands  of  Amer- 
ican readers,  and  every  year  a  complete  report  of  the  work  of 
his  company  goes  to  every  'phone  subscriber  in  the  United 
States. 

The  American  Sugar  Refining  Company  for  years  fol- 
lowed the  "none-of-your-business"  attitude  of  Mr.  Have- 
meyer,  but  the  new  president,  Mr.  W.  B.  Thomas,  adopted 
the  common  sense  attitude  that  the  company  must  be  frank 
with  the  public  and  explain  every  important  move.  During 
the  agitation  in  September,  1911,  over  the  rise  of  prices,  the 
sugar  company  published  in  the  leading  papers  throughout 
the  country  a  three-column  advertisement,  headed,  "The 
Facts  in  the  Sugar  Situation." 

The  Standard  Oil  Company,  in  191 1,  changed  front  com- 
pletely on  the  policy  of  publicity  and  now  employs  all  the 
methods  of  advertising. 

The  New  York  Telephone  Company  has  been  using  ad- 
vertising space  in  New  York  papers  to  create  public  con- 
fidence in  its  principles  and  policies,  and  has  realized  on  its 
promises  by  a  noticeable  attempt  to  live  up  to  them. 

These  corporations  are  learning  the  lesson  of  service — 
are  "learning  to  cater,"  as  Mr.  Herbert  N.  Casson,  who  has 
served  many  of  the  large  corporations,  phrases  it.  Some 
day  every  large  corporation  will  have  an  official  in  charge  of 
public  relations,  as  a  prominent  railroad  official  told  me  the 
other  day. 

This  is  a  common  sense  realization  of  the  principle  that 
you  must  gain  the  confidence  of  the  people  who  elect  public 


70 


WHAT'S    THE    USE? 


officials  and  not  depend  entirely  upon  the  personal  good 
will  of  the  official.  Just  now,  in  these  days  of  the  direct 
primary  and  the  recall,  the  public  official  has  found  it  very 
unhealthy  to  ignore  the  people  after  election.  That  principle 
— go  to  the  people — should  be  burned  into  the  official  minds 
of  every  public  service  corporation.  It  would  save  them  mil- 
lions. No  one  has  ever  been  able  to  explain  clearly  why  it  is 
that  the  public  service  companies  and  quasi-public  institu- 
tions, such  as  banks  and  insurance  companies,  were  so 
thoroughly  convinced  that  it  was  not  any  one's  business  what 
they  did  or  how  they  did  it. 

Probably  this  attitude  is  an  outgrowth  of  the  military 
idea  of  internal  organization,  where  orders  are  given  to  be 
obeyed  and  not  to  be  questioned  or  explained.  But  it  doesn't 
work  in  voluntary  relationships,  and,  therefore,  it  isn't  the 
true  nor  the  common  sense  way  of  handling  the  situation. 

President  Wilson  said :  "Business  exists  for  the  com- 
munity— not  the  community  for  the  business."  When  that 
statement  is  accepted,  a  new  conception  of  what  is  "the  pub- 
lic's affair"  becomes  possible. 

The  Study  of  Mankind 

Marshall  Field  explained  to  his  people  every  order  he 
issued  and  every  plan  he  adopted.  He  understood  human 
nature.  He  recognized  that  the  human  factor  was  vital  to 
the  success  of  orders  or  plans.  There  is  always  friction  and 
lack  of  co-operation  when  you  don't  enlist  your  people's 
hearty  co-operation  in  any  order  or  plan.  This  lack  of  co- 
operation means,  first,  waste  in  getting  the  plan  going,  and, 
afterwards,  in  keeping  it  at  highest  efficiency. 

At  every  step  through  the  mazes  of  commerce  we  run  up 
against  human  nature.  In  deciding  how  we  shall  deal  with 
it,  we  must  find  out  how,  for  our  purpose,  it  thinks  and  acts. 

We  shall  have  to  "sell"  every  man  with  whom  we  come 


SOME    BUSINESS    POLICIES 


71 


in  contact  in  life,  whether  it  be  our  value  as  a  man  or  the 
brand  of  the  merchandise  we  offer,  or  the  value  of  the  service 
of  our  corporations,  or  even  our  opinion  of  himself. 

You  must  settle  all  your  own  doubts  before  you  can  gain 
followers  or  customers.  This  we  do  by  introspection,  which 
means  looking  into  yourself  and  then  sizing  yourself  up  by 
careful  comparison  with  what  you  see  by  looking  out  into 
the  world  of  men,  and  looking  back  into  the  lives  of  men 
who  have  lived  and  done  things.  Mere  knowledge  is  not 
enough.  Just  to  know  what  you,  and  the  men  of  today  and 
yesterday,  thought  and  did;  to  accept  what  they  say  or  do, 
may  mean  nothing  to  you  except  a  dangerous  likelihood  that 
you  may  follow  the  wrong  inspiration,  accept  the  wrong 
idea.  There  must  be  active  comparison  of  self  with  others. 
We  must  ask  ourselves  questions  :  What  is  the  true  value  of 
their  thoughts  and  acts?  How  shall  we  know  whether  a 
thing  is  good  or  bad  for  our  purpose?  Put  it  to  a  test — 
What's  the  use  of  it  ?  What  concrete  difference  to  you  does 
it  make  whether  a  thing  is  true  or  not?  In  what  way  will 
anything  make  me  better  or  worse  physically,  mentally, 
spiritually  ? 

This  is  what  we  want  to  know.  This  is  the  common  sense 
test.  Most  of  us  do  not  stop  to  think  out  a  plan  of  life,  nor 
test  our  plan  when  we  have  one,  nor  try  it  out  by  any 
standard.  But  all  of  us  have  some  settled  plan  in  life, 
whether  we  can  or  cannot  reduce  it  to  a  definite  statement. 
This  attitude  of  mind  makes  up  "the  way  we  look  at  life 
and  things."  That  "way"  is  our  philosophy  of  life.  That 
philosophy  of  the  applicant  makes  all  the  difference  in  the 
world  to  the  man  who  hires  a  secretary,  or  a  factory  superin- 
tendent, or  a  sales  manager. 

Mr.  Field  suggested  his  philosophy  of  business  in  his 
little  "Book  of  Rules,"  because  the  rules  raised  the  efficiency 
of  health,  created  a  desire  to  study  how  to  become  a  better 


72 


WHAT'S    THE    USE? 


salesman  or  a  more  productive  employe,  because  it  offered 
higher  pay  to  those  who  played  the  game  according  to  the 
rules,  and  created  the  spiritual  efficiency  of  high  ideals  which 
breeds  the  do-or-die  spirit. 

Emotion  as  an  Efficiency  Factor 

The  efficient  manager  in  the  sales  department  naturally 
works  by  charts,  statistics,  facts — not  entirely  by  traveler's 
reports.  While  he  studies  the  cold  facts  as  a  means  of  know- 
ing what  a  man  is  actually  doing  to  cover  the  territory  and 
to  get  all  the  business,  he  does  not  forget  the  emotional 
human  side  of  the  material  with  which  he  works,  for  emo- 
tions are  just  as  hard  a  fact  as  bank  clearings. 

The  National  Cash  Register  Company's  method  of  fixing 
on  the  amount  of  business  that  shall  be  done  in  each  terri- 
tory— in  use  by  other  companies,  too — offers  an  example  of 
scientific  common  sense,  based  on  the  principle  that  human 
nature  is  much  the  same  everywhere.  Each  cash  register 
salesman  is  given  a  guaranteed  territory  and  each  territory 
is  required  to  produce  a  certain  predetermined  quota  of  busi- 
ness.   The  territory  is  the  unit,  not  the  man. 

The  quota  of  business  to  be  obtained  in  a  territory  is 
based  upon  four  things  : 

First — The  number  of  possible  buyers  of  cash  registers 

Second — The  number  of  users  of  old  style  registers 
which  should  be  traded  in  for  later  models 

Third — The  average  sales  in  proportion  to  possible  buy- 
ers made  in  the  past  in  that  territory 

Fourth — The  average  sales  made  to  different  lines  of 
possible  buyers  throughout  the  country 

Of  course,  in  finally  fixing  this  quota,  the  accessibility 
of  parts  of  territory  and  its  general  financial  character  are 
considered.  Quotas  are  given  for  each  month  only,  so  as  to 
keep  the  men  at  top  efficiency  all  the  year,  and  prizes  are 


SOME    BUSINESS    POLICIES 


n 


frequently  given  to  those  who  get  the  greatest  per  cent  of 
quota  by  the  tenth  or  twentieth  of  each  month. 

This  scientific  sales-making  plan  operates  on  common 
sense  knowledge  that  human  nature  needs  a  spur,  yet  re- 
quires frequent  opportunities  to  stop  and  count  the  game 
already  landed,  i.  e.,  the  quotas  by  month  instead  of  year. 

There  is  the  emotional  appeal  in  prize-giving  and  in 
the  manager-to-man  talks  in  schools,  conventions,  and  publi- 
cations. In  business  as  in  politics,  the  emotional  strikes  the 
universal  note  of  appeal.  The  "full  dinner  pail"  in  the  Mc- 
Kinley  campaign  swung  thousands  of  votes  to  the  Repub- 
licans, as  the  campaign  manager.  Senator  Hanna  knew  so 
well  it  would;  the  "cross  of  gold"  speech,  with  its  emotional 
appeal,  jerked  Mr.  Bryan  into  the  limelight  and  brought  him 
a  nomination  for  the  presidency. 

The  most  successful  "reason  why"  advertising  of  John 
E.  Kennedy,  the  well-known  advertising  writer,  is  not  so 
much  "reason,"  as  it  is  emotional  "why."  Herbert  Kauf- 
man's rhapsodical  writing  coruscating  with  vivid  figures,  is 
purely  emotional,  and  its  appeal  to  the  man-animal  is  strong 
in  proportion. 

Roosevelt  ran  counter  to  the  emotional  law  when  he 
sanctioned  the  removal  of  "In  God  We  Trust"  from  the 
coinage.  The  words  were  originally  placed  there  to  satisfy 
the  emotional  impulse  of  a  people  bred  in  the  era  of  the 
Rights  of  Man  and  stirred  to  their  depths  by  a  war  for 
national  independence.  Common  sense  did  not  sanction  the 
removal.  Logically,  the  inscription  may  be  ridiculous,  but 
the  people  look  upon  it  as  a  sacred  tradition,  and  it  must 
stay. 

In  order  to  make  men  think  you  must  make  them  feel. 
Therefore  the  appeal  to  the  emotions  is  thoroughly  scientific. 
Mrs.  Pankhurst,  the  English  suffragette,  said  as  she  was 
being  taken  to  prison  after  a  votes-for-women  demonstra- 


74 


WHAT'S    THE    USE? 


tion :  "This  is  good  advertising."  She  knew  that  it  would 
mean  the  arresting  of  Enghsh  attention  if  the  press  of  the 
world  described  the  scene  of  a  woman  being  mauled  by 
London  "Bobbies." 


CHAPTER    VI 

PSYCHOLOGY  AND   COMMON   SENSE 

So  the  principle  of  chemical  equivalents,  beautiful  as  it 
is,  matters  far  less  to  a  peasant  boy,  and  even  to  most  sons 
of  gentlemen,  than  their  knowing  how  to  find  whether  the 
water  is  wholesome  in  the  back  kitchen  cistern,  or  zvhether 
the  seven-acre  field  wants  sand  or  chalk. — From  a  Note- 
book. 

Applied  Psychology 

Some  months  ago  a  young  man,  who  had  been  a  teacher 
of  salesmen  in  a  prominent  manufacturing  concern,  was 
telHng  a  convention  of  other  business  men  how  he  taught 
salesmen  to  become  more  efficient.  "We  don't  talk  to  them 
about  psychology,"  he  proclaimed,  "we  eliminate  all  the 
highbrow  talk  and  show  them  how  sales  are  made." 

The  ignorant  among  the  audience  applauded  that  state- 
ment. It  was  good  psychology  to  talk  in  that  shallow  way 
to  rule-of-thumb  men.  Such  men  like  to  hear  science  and 
knowledge  belittled;  they  like  to  hear  their  "experience" 
lauded.  They  are  intolerant  of  knowledge  gained  in  any 
other  way  than  the  way  they  gained  theirs.  So  the  statement 
was  good  psychology  for  the  moment,  but  of  course  it  wasn't 
true.  That  teacher,  as  he  after  admitted,  had  studied 
psychology.  He  was  applying  its  principles  every  day.  His 
success  as  a  teacher  and  a  salesman  and  manager  was  due 
to  it  in  detail  and  in  principle. 

He  did  not  mean  what  he  said.  He  meant  to  say  that 
he  taught  salesmen  how  to  sell  by  appealing  to  the  true 
things  in  their  own  experience,  by  showing  them  what  forces 
made  the  sale  through  what  they  were  doing,  by  getting  their 

75 


7^ 


WHAT'S    THE    USE? 


point  of  contact — in  other  words,  by  using  psychology  but 
not  teaching  it  as  such.  But  some  of  the  audience  did  not 
grasp  that  distinction,  and  many  left  the  hall  confirmed  in 
the  idea  that  the  way  they  saw  the  things  they  were  doing 
was  the  only  way — that  science  had  nothing  to  contribute  of 
value  toward  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  how  to  sell  and 
how  to  advertise. 

Those  rule-of-thumb  men  are  going  to  be  shut  out  from 
a  whole  world  of  profitable  and  illuminating  ideas  because 
that  speaker  played  down  to  their  ignorance,  and  would 
rather  win  a  hand  than  be  right. 

Psychology  at  Work 

"But  what  is  the  use  of  psychology?"  asked  the  man  who 
wants  concrete  illustration. 

Let  that  man  read  Seashore's  book,*  or  that  of  Miinster- 
berg.f  Let  him  go  to  the  National  Cash  Register  Company, 
the  Boston  Vocational  Bureau,  the  Wanamaker  School  for 
Employes.    He  will  see  psychology  at  work. 

Through  psychology  we  are  putting  business  on  a  more 
common  sense  and  efficient  basis,  because  the  psychologist 
is  showing  how  best  to  do  certain  things,  and  how  to  select 
men  best  adapted  to  the  work.  That  success  will  soon  be- 
come apparent  to  even  the  rule-of-thumb,  pooh-pooh,  "prac- 
tical" men,  who  will  then  copy  it.  It  will  then  become  a 
mere  commonplace  of  everyday  practice — and  there  you  are ! 

Even  then,  however,  the  efficient  man  will  be  several 
laps  ahead  of  his  practical  brother,  and  he  will  have  made 
less  mistakes  into  the  bargain. 

Yet,  by  itself,  in  the  bald  statements  of  scientific  fact, 
psychology  teaches  no  more  than  can  be  learned  from  the 
isolated  entries  in  a  ledger — even  when  these  entries  are 


*"  Psychology  in  Daily  Life,"  by  CarrEmilJSeashore. 

t" Psychology  and  Industrial  Efficiency,"JHugo  Miinsterberg. 


PSYCHOLOGY    AND    COMMON    SENSE 


17 


brought  together  in  recapitulations,  as  facts  in  psychology 
may  be  brought  together  into  laws  and  principles.  Psy- 
chological facts  mean  no  more  than  any  of  the  facts  and 
figures  on  a  balance  sheet — you  must  use  your  balance-sheet 
facts  to  make  them  effective  in  the  conduct  of  your  business 
and  your  psychological  laws  in  directing  your  acts  and  in 
shaping  your  judgments  of  men. 

As  James  pointed  out,  the  science  of  medicine  never 
made  a  good  doctor — that  of  anatomy  never  made  a  good 
artist — the  science  of  hydraulics  never  made  a  hydraulic  en- 
gineer— the  science  of  chemistry  never  made  a  good  chemist. 
But  science,  practically  applied,  has  made  it  possible  for  the 
great  ones  in  every  profession  to  give  us  the  tremendous  re- 
sults you  and  I  enjoy. 

Common  sense  has  made  us  hospitable  to  the  discoveries 
of  science,  and  the  theory  of  efficiency  is  making  us  push 
science  to  new^  realizations.  Note  the  laboratory  work  of 
the  great  corporations,  where  men  are  hired  to  find  better 
ways  of  doing  things,  that  are  already  winning  new  laurels 
for  business. 

Illusions 

Most  of  us  suffer  from  illusions  just  as  the  insane  do. 
An  insane  person  is  one  wdio  believes  in  things  that  are  not 
true.  Most  of  us  are  really  sane  on  comparatively  few^ 
things. 

We  must  be  chary  of  accepting  things  for  what  they 
seem  to  be.  All  of  us  have  these  illusions ;  they  are  as  much 
a  part  of  our  sense  and  mental  equipment  as  hair,  teeth, 
fingers  and  toes,  and  taste  and  hearing.  Some  men,  no 
matter  whether  they  be  w^orkingmen,  managers,  or  capital- 
ists, cannot  realize  that  they  are  susceptible  to  these  illusions, 
Like  the  janitor  of  a  schoolhouse  who  indignantly  denied 
there  were  any  microbes  in  the  place  since  he  took  it  over, 


78  WHAT'S    THE    USE? 

because  "he  had  seen  none,"  so  some  of  us  deny  the  existence 
of  illusions  because  we  have  not  discovered  them.  The  man 
who  is  suffering  from  illusions  doesn't  know  it — or  he  would 
correct  them.    Would  he  not? 

The  man  who  depends  on  his  common  sense  has  the  com- 
mon illusions  of  his  senses.  They  are  myriad;  let  me  tell 
you  of  some  :* 

Place  an  inflated  paper  bag  in  one  outstretched  hand,  in 
the  other  outstretched  hand  drop  coins  until  the  weight 
balances.    Then  weigh  the  coins  and  the  bag. 

How  much  higher  is  the  crown  of  a  silk  hat  than  the 
distance  across  the  brim? 

Why  does  an  object  pulled  suddenly  appear  lighter  than 
when  it  is  pulled  slowly? 

Give  a  man  a  four-pound  weight,  then  a  four-ounce 
weight,  and  he  will  generally  underestimate  the  latter,  and 
vice  versa. 

The  Work  of  Science 

These  illusions  are  of  the  senses.  But  the  illusions  of 
memory  and  of  judgment  are  always  influencing  our  con- 
duct. A  myriad  of  these  illusions  wait  on  the  man  who 
trusts  merely  to  his  native  common  sense,  until  he  discovers 
the  supernal  common  sense — as  Harrington  Emerson  calls 
it — of  the  scientist,  which  sifts  realities  from  trick  illusions. 
The  scientific  man  is  always  on  his  guard  against  hearsay — 
optical  and  other  sense  illusions,  and  prejudice.  He  asserts 
only  those  things  which  stand  the  tests  for  accuracy  of  ob- 
servation and  correctness  of  conclusion.  Then  he  puts  these 
alongside  the  lessons  derived  from  wider  research  than  his 
own,  and  the  results  of  "a  closer,  more  detailed,  more  keenly 
discriminating,  recordable,  repeatable,  and  more  penetrat- 
ing" vision,  and  obtains  a  conclusion  which  often  confounds 


•  From  "Psychology  in  Daily  Life,"  Seashore. 


PSYCHOLOGY    AND    COMMON    SENSE 


79 


and  frequently  fails  to  be  acceptable  to  a  public  which  has 
yet  to  realize  its  own  fallibility.  Witness,  the  farmers  and 
scientific  farming,  the  manufacturers  and  efficiency  produc- 
tion, the  railroads  and  proven  waste. 

Many  men  resent  being  awakened.  They  like  the  morn- 
ing nap  with  its  vague  dreaming,  when  the  world  is  neither 
wholly  present  nor  wholly  absent,  but  swims  in  a  haze  of 
floating  phantoms  and  reality.  But  the  alarm  clock  of 
science  clatters  on  intermittently,  until  the  man  arises,  or, 
does  what  is  much  worse,  he  sleepily  and  petulantly  turns 
over,  turns  off  the  alarm,  and  goes  back  to  sleep ! 

In  any  event,  the  problem  of  arising  and  facing  the  world, 
most  of  us  will  agree,  remains  to  be  solved. 

The  planning  departments  of  great  factories,  where  effi- 
ciency is  a  mere  commonplace  of  the  day's  work,  are  fed  by 
laboratory  experiments. 

Scientific  vocational  guidance  is  just  coming  into  the 
notice  of  the  average  man  because  he  has  found  it  "works," 
that  its  use  value  is  beyond  computation. 

We  have  had  the  principle  of  efficiency  applied  in 
orchestras  and  athletic  teams  ever  since  orchestral  music 
was  organized,  or  athletic  contests  by  teams  established.  It 
is  onjy  that  we  find  it  so  hard  to  see  the  use  of  strange  devices 
that  makes  it  hard  to  realize  the  value  of  such  principles  to 
business. 

Efficient  Common  Sense 

Of  course  the  ideal  conditions  in  a  business  would  be 
where  every  employe  or  employer  is  intelligent,  thinking, 
loyal,  disinterested,  just,  and  industrious,  in  the  job  best 
suited  to  his  abilities.  No  business  has  such  employes,  and 
there  are  no  favoring  environments  to  produce  such,  either 
in  or  out  of  business. 

Employers  do  not  discharge  all  incompetents,  because 


8o  WHAT'S    THE    USE? 

the  man  may  go  to  a  competitor  for  whom  he  may  do  better 
work.  The  incompetent  may  be  good  for  something  other 
than  what  he  was  hired  for — he  may  be  kept  for  sentimental 
reasons — ^but  the  test  must  come  in  all  such  cases — What's 
the  use  of  keeping  him  ?  Efficiency  keeps  our  eyes  open  to 
the  need  of  knowing  why  we  keep  him,  and  what  it  costs  to 
keep  him  and  where  he  can  be  used  to  best  advantage. 

Efficiency  common  sense  is  illustrated  in  a  story  of 
Lincoln.  In  1832,  Lincoln,  then  twenty-three  years  old, 
with  two  boy  helpers,  built  a  flat-boat  on  the  Sangamon 
River  in  Illinois,  and  loaded  it  with  grain,  live  hogs,  and 
pork  in  barrels.  The  overloaded  boat  stranded  on  a  mill- 
dam;  for  a  day  and  a  night  it  hung  helpless,  its  end  project- 
ing over  the  dam.  The  most  skilled  experience  about  him 
regarded  the  boat  as  lost.  Lincoln  says :  "We  lightened  the 
boat  and  then  rolled  the  barrels  forward,  bored  a  hole  in 
the  projecting  end  over  the  dam ;  the  water  which  had  leaked 
in  ran  out,  and  we  slid  over."  The  onlookers  were  struck 
with  Lincoln's  ingenuity. 

"He  got  to  thinking  on  it,"  for  such  troubles  were  very 
frequent  on  Western  rivers,  and  he  put  to  work  some  of  the 
simple  mechanical  ideas  he  had  read  about.  Nineteen  years 
after  his  milldam  experience,  he  became  a  lawyer  and  was 
in  Congress.  On  his  way  home  the  boat  he  was  on  was  long 
delayed  on  a  sand  bar.  This  aroused  his  interest,  and  he 
thought  out  a  device  which  could  apply  his  old  experience 
as  a  principle.  There  is  in  the  patent  office  at  Washington 
a  little  rough  model  of  a  boat  which  was  marked,  when  A. 
Lincoln  was  given  a  patent  in  1849,  "Intended  to  be  of 
benefit  to  all  the  world  and  a  profit  to  himself."  The  design 
of  this  invention  was  to  make  it  easier  to  take  loaded  boats 
over  shoal  places.  After  these  two  experiences,  nearly 
twenty  years  apart,  he  kept  on  studying  displacement  and 
flotation — he  "kept  thinking  on  it." 


PSYCHOLOGY    AND    COMMON    SENSE  gl 

Early  in  the  war  of  the  secession,  Ericsson,  a  Swede  in 
New  York,  invented  a  monitor  and  needed  a  government 
appropriation  to  build  it.  G.  B.  Fox,  Assistant  Secretary  of 
the  Navy,  said  the  heavy  armor  would  sink  such  vessels. 
"But,"  answered  President  Lincoln,  "is  that  not  a  sum  in 
arithmetic  ?  On  our  Western  rivers  we  figure  just  how  many 
tons  will  sink  a  flat-boat.  Can't  your  clerks  do  the  same  for 
an  armored  vessel?" 

But  that  was  too  absurd.  Why  was  it  necessary  when 
all  rule-of-thumb  experience  was  against  such  an  idea — for 
there  are  rule-of-thumb  scientists  as  well  as  business  men. 

Congress  passed  a  special  appropriation  for  the  purpose, 
but  the  naval  board,  consisting  of  a  commodore  and  an 
admiral,  condemned  the  monitor.  Ericsson  went  to  Wash- 
ington and  argued  the  question  in  the  President's  presence 
with  this  board  of  naval  officers.  Again  the  board  ruled 
adversely.  Lincoln  overruled  the  board  and  told  Ericsson 
to  go  ahead.  The  result  was  the  Monitor,  and  the  subse- 
quent triumph  over  the  Merrimac.  The  principle  of  the 
armored  vessel  was  practically  established. 

That  was  an  instance  in  which  the  common  sense  of  the 
rail-splitter,  with  the  memory  of  his  work  on  a  Western 
river,  overruled  the  rule-of-thumb  "experts,"  who  obeyed 
only  the  law  of  precedent,  but  had  neither  common  sense  nor 
open-mindedness  towards  innovation,  as  a  part  of  their 
science.  Lincoln's  common  sense  could  see  no  essential 
difference  between  the  boats  on  the  sea  and  the  boats  on  the 
river. 

Let  us  here  realize  that  Lincoln  did  not  overthrow 
science;  he  just  placed  more  science  at  the  command  of  his 
common  sense  than  the  experts  had  at  their  command. 

What  a  lesson  for  the  business  man  who  knows  only  a 
few  things  in  dealing  with  novel  conditions  and  ideas  in  a 
whole  world  of  business! 


82  WHAT'S    THE    USE? 

The  Self  ridge  Experiment 

Henry  Selfridge  was  one  of  Marshall  Field's  retail  part- 
ners. Retiring  from  the  Chicago  house,  he  went  to  London 
to  start  a  departmental  store  on  plans  familiar  to  Americans. 

"London  is  different  from  New  York  or  Chicago,"  was 
the  warning  of  the  horrified  Britishers,  Selfridge  admitted 
it,  and  methodically  went  at  the  process  of  finding  out  in 
what  concrete  ways  London  buying- folks  were  different  from 
American  buyers.  He  soon  had  a  mass  of  data  collected  by 
some  of  his  expert  observers. 

He  said :  "Londoners  are  different,  but  they  want  what  I 
have,  because  I  have  what  all  humanity  wants,"  The  store 
was  built  and  stocked. 

"Londoners  will  not  read  American  advertisements,  for 
one  thing,"  again  said  the  wise  British  counsellors.  Self- 
ridge listened  and  didn't  believe  it — just  as  in  1876  Wana- 
maker  listened  to  the  Philadelphia  merchants,  and  didn't 
believe  them.  London  stores  never  presumed  to  tell  their 
patrons  what  they  should  buy;  they  thought  it  an  imper- 
tinence, and  that  English  people  wouldn't  read  the  blow- 
hard  American  advertising.  In  1910,  during  the  Christmas 
season,  Selfridge,  advertising  the  holiday  goods  he  had  to 
offer,  came  out  with  whole  pages  in  the  leading  London 
dailies.  One  page  advertisement  was  headed :  "What  Shall 
I  Give?"  and  its  several  columns  were  a  veritable  catalog  of 
suggestions,  divided :  What  to  give  a  man — a  child — a  lady 
— a  sweetheart,  etc.  It  is  said  that  Selfridge's  had  the 
largest  holiday  trade  of  any  store  in  the  history  of  British 
retailing. 

Some  London  merchants  are  now  admitting  that  Self- 
ridge's common  sense  view  of  the  fact  that  human  nature 
is  pretty  much  the  same  the  world  over,  is  winning  out. 
All  the  big  London  stores  are  now  advertising  like  Selfridge, 
just  as  forty  years  and  more  ago  Wanamaker  forced  other 


PSYCHOLOGY    AND    COMMON    SENSE  83 

Philadelphia  merchants  to  follow  his  "ruinous  policy  of  ad- 
vertising," in  telling  the  people  in  an  easy,  newsy  style  what 
he  had  to  sell,  and  why  his  was  the  better  place  to  buy. 

British  merchants  are  now  inviting  Mr.  Selfridge  to 
talk  before  their  commercial  clubs,  boards  of  trade,  and  other 
business  organizations.  Yankee  common  sense  has  so  far 
won  against  the  rule-of-thumb  philosophy  of  a  nation  of 
shop-keepers,  hidebound  by  precedent. 


CHAPTER    VII 

EFFICIENCY    AND    COMMON    SENSE 

There  is  a  sense  common  to  the  class  of  rule-o'-thumb 
which  said,  mad  dogs  are  bewitched — there  is  a  common 
sense  of  the  educated  which  says,  mad  dogs  have  hydro- 
phobia.— Anonymous. 

While  there  is  but  one  right  course,  there  are  a  dozen 
faulty  courses.  Efficiency  consists  in  omitting  what  is 
wrong,  if  it  is  wrong,  and  what  is  right  will  come  of  itself. 
I  have  learned  the  fundamental  principles,  not  from  the 
faulty  ways  and  selfish  actions  of  men,  but  from  the 
astonishingly  wise  actions  of  plants,  flowers,  fruits,  insects, 
wild  animals  and  birds,  little  children  and  women. 

— Harrington  Emerson. 

The  Missing  Link 

A  manufacturer  of  a  new  brand  of  underwear  began  to 
advertise  in  a  line  of  publications,  asking  people  to  send  for 
"samples  of  the  fabric  and  other  information."  When  the 
information  was  sought,  the  inquirer  in  the  New  England 
territory  was  informed  that  a  certain  Boston  jobbing  house 
handled  the  garments.  The  inquirer  heard  nothing  from  the 
jobbing  house.  Having  no  chance  to  call  in  person  on  the 
jobber,  the  inquirer,  being  an  unusually  persistent  person, 
stopped  at  six  different  stores  in  his  town  in  the  effort  to 
find  the  garment.  Ultimately,  the  garment  was  purchased 
in  a  store  forty-six  miles  from  his  home. 

This  obvious  fault  in  the  sales  scheme  was  laid  before  the 
manufacturer  by  letter,  and  the  inquirer  naturally  thought 
he  was  doing  the  manufacturer  a  good  turn.  No  acknowl- 
edgment was  ever  received.  The  manufacturer,  used  to 
handling  inquiries  from  retailers,  showed  a  total  lack  of 

84 


EFFICIENCY    AND    COMMON    SENSE  85 

common  sense  in  dealing  with  the  consumer  in  the  same 
way,  and,  further,  a  lack  of  common  sense  courtesy  in  not 
acknowledging  the  criticism. 

Yet  this  lack  of  foresight  in  making  sales  arrangements 
to  anticipate  the  probable  effect  of  magazine  advertising  is 
responsible  for  much  ineffective  advertising. 

Managers  have  raved  over  the  lack  of  common  sense  of 
the  public  when  the  latter  failed  to  see  the  reasonableness 
of  some  ruling,  when  the  managers  themselves  had  not 
shown  common  sense  in  handling  the  ruling. 

The  "out  at  lunch"  excuse  of  shops,  plants,  and  stores  is 
one  of  the  evidences  of  a  lack  of  common  sense  anticipation 
on  the  part  of  the  merchant.  Lunch  time  is  when  many  men 
do  their  personal  errands.  An  ordinary  observance  of  that 
fact  would  keep  many  merchants  who  run  jewelry  shops, 
shoe  repairing,  haberdashery  shops,  et  cetera,  behind  their 
counters  at  that  time  of  day. 

"Is  my  watch  ready?"  asked  a  customer  at  the  repair 
counter  of  a  large  jewelry  store  in  Philadelphia.  The  clerk 
fumbled  his  card  records ;  then  spent  several  minutes  study- 
ing a  rack  on  which  a  hundred  watches  were  hanging.  "It 
isn't  here,"  he  said;  "I'll  'phone  up  to  the  workroom."  A 
moment  later  he  hung  up  the  receiver.  "Our  foreman  is  at 
lunch,"  he  said,  "can  you  drop  in  again?" 

"I  suppose  I'll  have  to.  But  I  wish  you  could  tell  me 
when  the  watch  will  be  ready.  This  is  the  third  time  I 
have  been  here." 

"I'm  sorry,"  returned  the  clerk,  "but  there's  nobody 
upstairs  who  knows  anything  about  it.  The  foreman,  you 
see,  attends  to  all  that." 

The  customer  departed,  ruffled  in  temper  and  resolved 
that  if  he  ever  did  get  the  watch  back  he'd  permanently 
"pass  up"  that  store. 

Most  of  us  have  had  similar  experience.    "Out  at  lunch" 


86  WHAT'S    THE    USE? 

ties  up  many  a  transaction,  when  a  proper  organization  or  a 
right  system  would  make  a  definite  answer  possible.  Fore- 
men, superintendents,  or  managers  carry  around  in  their 
heads  the  detail  that  should  be  in  writing  where  any  clerk 
could  see  it  at  a  glance.  The  little  prejudices  that  arise  from 
such  annoyance  do  a  business  much  untraceable  harm. 

There's  only  one  efficient  common  sense  rule  for  system 
— keep  a  record  so  that  the  greenest  man  can  handle  the  job. 

A  Failure  of  Distribution 

The  business  world  rubbed  its  eyes  during  19 lo  at  the 
prodigal  advertising  expenditure  of  the  vacuum-cleaner 
makers.  Thousands  of  dollars  were  thrown  to  the  wind  in 
a  mad  rush  for  business  through  publicity.  Expert  adver- 
tisers warned  the  makers  against  such  methods,  but  the 
manufacturers  were  generally  unskilled  in  handling  such 
specialties  and  thought  they  knew  "the  game."  Inquiries 
were  created  by  the  thousands,  but  there  was  no  trained  sales 
force  in  the  territories  to  sell  the  goods.  Dealers  could  not 
be  taught  properly  to  demonstrate  the  machines  fast  enough 
to  handle  the  business. 

Then  the  cleaners  were  almost  all  made  to  run  by  elec- 
tricity, which  was  used  only  in  certain  villages  and  towns 
and  cities.  But  the  machines  were  largely  advertised  in 
monthly  popular  magazines,  a  large  part  of  whose  circula- 
tion was  among  farmers,  small  villages  without  electricity, 
and  people  who  had  no  use  for  the  cleaner. 

Efficient  planning  would  have  demanded :  "What  kind 
of  people  will  buy  this  device?  Where  are  the  possible 
customers?  In  cities  or  in  towns?"  Let  us  take  up  the 
cities  and  towns  one  at  a  time — territory  by  territory,  by 
using  expert  demonstrations  and  tried  salesmen,  get  a  list 
of  householders  from  the  local  blue  books,  club  and  society 
directories,  go  to  these  with  letters  and  ask  permission  to 


EFFICIENCY    AND     COMMON     SENSE  g/ 

demonstrate.    Then  we  will  organize  campaigns  in  the  news- 
papers as  fast  as  local  territories  are  manned. 

Rule-of-thumb  experience  of  men  who  knew  the  prac- 
tices of  some  business  but  nothing  of  the  principles  of  mar- 
keting in  this  one,  cost  their  stockholders  thousands  and 
ruined  one  large  concern  beyond  rehabilitation. 

Trade  Mark  Mistakes 

Take  the  matter  of  trade-marked  names.  Few  people 
show  real  common  sense  in  the  selection  of  trade  marks  in 
naming  a  product.  Has  anybody  ever  been  able  to  pro- 
nounce properly  the  word  "Mazda?"  It  is  the  given  name 
of  an  incandescent  lamp.  Who  has  not  stumbled  and  balked 
over  "Bon  Ami,"  the  name  of  a  scouring  soap?  Mr.  W.  H. 
Childs,  of  the  Bon  Ami  Company,  has  stated  that  he  would 
give  a  good  many  thousand  dollars  if  he  could  change  the 
name  of  this  article  without  losing  the  goodwill  value  of  past 
advertising.  I  know  women  who  have  hesitated  to  ask  for 
"Bon  Ami"  because  they  were  afraid  of  mispronouncing  it. 

Isn't  that  a  brilliant  thing  to  do  to  an  article  on  which 
you  are  spending  thousands  to  popularize?  Probably  some 
of  the  worst  trade  marks  are  the  names  given  to  cigarettes 
and  cigars,  although  since  the  American  Tobacco  Company 
have  taken  over  so  many,  a  noticeable  improvement  has  oc- 
curred, thanks  to  the  efficiency  of  that  organization. 

The  scientific  common  sense  attitude  towards  innovations 
or  new  ideas  will  always  lead  us  to  test  all  new  things  by 
the  "What's  the  use"  standard,  and  just  as  soon  as  they 
cease  to  work  and  to  deliver  the  greatest  possible  benefit 
to  us,  to  discard  them  for  something  more  useful. 

Scientific  Common  Sense 

Scientific  common  sense  causes  us  to  understand  that 
each  individual  case  is  different  in  some  minor  particulars, 
but  in  their  principles  all  cases  are  alike. 


88  WHAT'S    THE    USE? 

Man  must  take  time  to  think,  or  he  must  pay  the  haste- 
waste  bill. 

Efficient  men  think  it  over — turning  it  over  in  their 
minds,  if  it  is  a  big  thing,  as  Gladstone  tells  us  he  did  with 
the  Home  Rule  matter  before  he  took  it  up.  He  read  and 
studied  similar  experiments;  he  talked  about  it  with  others 
opposed  and  in  sympathy;  he  began  to  get  facts  and  figures 
on  its  possible  effect;  he  counseled  with  experts  in  and  out  of 
the  government;  and  finally  he  decided  on  the  course  of 
action  that  had  taken  shape  in  his  mind. 

Just  as  in  biology,  the  killing  of  one  set  of  germs  may 
multiply  another  set  far  more  dangerous  to  health — just  as 
the  English  sparrow  became  a  nuisance  after  he  had  cleansed 
the  trees  of  insects — so  we  must  be  prepared  to  see  cost  clerks 
multiply  in  the  attempt  to  know  what  the  machinists  are' 
doing,  to  see  the  record  clerks  grow  in  the  wake  of  more 
sales,  and  to  see  the  low-priced  help  increase  where  there  is 
an  unscientific  cutting  out  of  high-priced  supervision. 

When  a  company,  making  a  duplicating  device,  several 
years  ago  changed  its  sales  managers  and  inaugurated  a 
policy  of  "saving"  the  cost  of  advertising  its  machines,  it 
found  in  a  year  that  what  advertising  had  cost  as  a  sales- 
making  energy  was  but  a  trifle  to  what  it  cost  to  sell  their 
machines  by  man-power  alone. 

If  the  acid  test  of  "What's  the  Use?"  had  been  applied 
to  that  move  and  an  answer  given  in  experience,  data,  facts, 
and  figures,  the  company  would  not  have  tried  the  hazardous 
experiment  of  "swapping  horses  in  the  middle  of  the 
stream." 

A  Personal  Efficiency  Test 

The  man  who  wants  to  raise  his  personal  efficiency  must 
try  the  "bookkeeping"  method,  i.  e.,  let  him  write  down  on 
one  side  of  a  sheet  all  the  qualities  which  should  be  apparent 


EFFICIENCY    AND    COMMON    SENSE 


89 


in  his  management  and  on  the  other  the  credits  to  which 
he  is  entitled.  Let  us  say  he  is  a  retailer  in  the  clothing  line. 
Let  him  ask  himself  questions  similar  to  these : 

I — Am  I  a  good  manager  of  men?     Who  says  so? 

What  method  proves  I  am  ? 
2 — How  many  times  have  I  had  differences  with  my 
employes  during  the  past  week?    Whose  fault? 
3 — Am  I  easy  to  anger?     Who  says  so? 
4 — Are  my  sales  people  increasing  sales?    Why? 
5 — Do  I  know  why  some  do  ?    How  do  I  know  it? 
6 — Why  don't  all  increase  in  efficiency?    What  have 

I  done  to  help  the  inefficient  ? 
7 — Have  I  been  buying  as  well  as  usual  ? 
8 — Are  the  stocks  moving  as  well  this  year  as  last? 

How  do  I  know? 
9 — Is  my  advertising  better  ?    How  do  I  know? 
10 — Are  my  accounts  collected  as  well  this  year? 
1 1 — Does  the  store  look  clean  and  bright  ? 
12 — Have  I  introduced  anything  new  in  window  dis- 
play, values,  styles,  management,  or  advertising 
in  the  past  three  months  ?    Was  it  worth  while  ? 
How  do  I  know  ? 
13 — Have  I  rewarded  my  best  men?    Is  my  method  of 
rewarding  productive  of  better  results  in  sales 
and  content?    What  proves  it? 
14 — Are  they  satisfied  ?    How  do  I  know? 
15 — What  have  I  done  to  make  them  do  their  best? 
16 — Did  it  get  their  best?    How  do  I  know? 
17 — Do  I  get  down  early  and  stay  late? 
18— Why  the  latter? 

19 — How  do  the  net  profits  compare  with  this  season 
last  year?    What  is  the  reason? 


90 


WHAT'S    THE    USE? 


20 — What  was  the  increase  over  the  month  before? 
Why?    Over  same  month  last  year?    Why? 

21 — What  am  I  doing  to  improve  that  result? 

22 — Do  I  go  to  commercial  club  meetings,  social  meet- 
ings, public  affairs,  more  or  less  than  I  did  last 
year  ?    Why? 

23 — Have  I  had  anyone  look  over  the  business  ?  How 
many  wastes  did  he  cut  out? 

24 — How  do  I  feel  about  the  business  ?  Do  I  want  to 
sell  out?  Do  I  think  this  is  the  kind  of  busi- 
ness I  belong  in?    Why? 

25 — Am  I  growing  more  than  my  competitors  ?  How 
do  I  know?    Why? 

Let  the  man  sit  down  with  himself  as  a  candid  friend 
somewhere  alone  and  answer  those  questions,  just  as  if  he 
never  expected  anyone  but  himself  ever  to  see  that  paper. 
Let  him  lock  the  paper  up  in  his  desk  for  a  few  days,  possibly 
a  week,  and  then  come  back  to  it,  read  it  over,  and  make  as 
many  changes  in  the  answers  as  he  thinks  necessary  to  meet 
a  rigid  standard  of  truth. 

Let  him  ask  some  of  his  friends  to  tell  him  frankly  how 
they  would  answer  some  of  the  questions  if  they  had  to  give 
a  candid  survey  of  his  character,  business  ability,  and  re- 
sults. It  may  give  him  a  shock,  but  it  will  do  him  good, 
no  matter  what  it  does  to  his  vanity  and  self-approval. 

The  young  man,  looking  for  a  chance,  should  go  at  him- 
self in  the  same  way.  Then  he  should  go  at  the  vital  problem 
of  finding  his  life-work  in  the  same  way. 

Vocational  Study 

Every  man  should  study  the  requirements  of  a  vocation 
before  he  makes  it  his  own.  Of  the  men  who  have  come  to  me 
to  study  advertising,  many  have  known  absolutely  nothing 
about  business,  and  have  had  no  taste  or  skill  in  either  de- 


EFFICIENCY    AND     COMMON     SENSE  gi 

signing  or  writing,  yet  these  men  were  entirely  willing 
to  waste  their  time  and  mine  learning  something  in  the 
practice  of  which  they  could  not  possibly  make  good,  and 
from  which  they  could  never  extract  an  iota  of  happiness. 
The  law  of  nature  is  against  such  men.  It  is  common  sense 
of  the  most  elementary  kind  for  a  man  to  ask :  "What  does 
a  position  require  in  the  way  of  education,  in  health,  in  ap- 
pearance, in  manual  skill,  in  mentality,  in  bodily  powers,  in 
kinds  of  experience,  in  social  or  business  connections,  in 
initiative,  in  concentration,  in  personal  sacrifice  to  start,  in 
courage,  moral  and  physical,  in  taste,  and  so  on?"  in  this 
particular  case  to  ask :  ''What  kind  of  an  employer  will  I 
have?    What  are  his  characteristics?" 

After  he  has  sized  up  the  business,  let  the  man  sit  down 
with  himself  and  find  out  if  he  has  it  in  him  to  succeed  at 
such  a  business.  Get  started  right  by  making  all  discoveries 
and  doing  all  the  thinking  about  whether  it  is  the  right  place 
or  not  before  you  take  it. 

The  Selection  of  the  Fittest 

In  an  address,  Katherince  M.  H.  Blackford,  the  employ- 
ment specialist,  said :  "While  we  cannot  yet  give  every 
child  competent  vocational  guidance  and  educate  his  parents 
to  co-operate  with  him  and  us,  we  can  make — and  have  made 
— a  profitable  start  in  that  direction  by  selecting  and  assign- 
ing men  and  women  according  to  their  inherent  fitness  for 
the  work  they  are  to  do,  thus  accomplishing  three  desirable 
results :  i.  e.,  making  them  more  efficient  and  happier,  in- 
creasing the  profits  of  their  employers,  and  demonstrating 
the  practicable  application  of  scientific  selection.  This  has 
been  done  through  a  properly  equipped  employment  de- 
partment in  charge  of  expert  character  analysts  who  inter- 
view select  and  assign  men.  The  functions  of  this  depart- 
ment are : 


92 


WHAT'S    THE    USE? 

I — To  number  all  positions  and  list  the  qualifications 
for  each, 

2 — To  find,  analyze  scientifically,  and  recommend  for 
employment  in  the  work  to  which  they  are  best 
adapted,  all  the  workers  needed. 

3 — To  secure  for  all  positions  the  very  best  human 
material  obtainable, 

4 — To  outline  the  readjustment  of  the  workers  em- 
ployed so  as  to  secure  the  best  results. 

5 — Gradually  to  eliminate  the  unfit  and  place  those  re- 
tained where  they  will  be  the  least  objectionable. 

6 — To  take  steps  to  secure  applications  from  desirable 
men  not  at  present  obtainable  or  particularly 
needed ;  to  analyze  and  list  these  as  a  reserve  or 
source  of  supply. 

7 — To  keep  accurate  records  of  the  department  and 
performance  of  every  man. 
a — As  a  means  of  dealing  with  the  man  him- 
self ; 
b — As  a  check  on  efficiency  of  the  employment 

department ; 
c — As  a  means  of  determining  the  trend  of  the 
whole  organization. 

8 — To  investigate,  consider,  and  bring  up  for  adjust- 
ment all  cases  of  inefficiency,  discontent,  inhar- 
mony,  and  misunderstanding. 

9 — Taking  "competent  counsel,"  to  establish  a  mini- 
mum wage  rate  for  each  position  or  secure  the 
best  human  material  obtainable  for  each  position 
at  as  low  a  rate  as  possible  commensurate  with 
justice  to  employer  and  employe, 
lo — Systematically  to  make  known  the  ideals  of  the  or- 
ganization. 


EFFICIENCY    AND    COMMON    SENSE 


93 


1 1 — To  familiarize  each  worker  with  the  qualities  con- 
sidered to  be  ideal  for  his  job — then  inspire  him 
to  strive  for  their  attainment. 

12 — To  form  classes  among  executives,  superinten- 
dents, and  foremen  for  inspiration,  suggestion, 
and  instruction  as  a  scientific  method  of  under- 
standing men. 

13 — To  determine  and  render  available  as  far  as  pos- 
sible all  the  latent  genius  and  special  abilities  of 
employes. 

14 — Beginning  at  the  top,  to  endeavor  to  instil  into 
every  individual  the  "spirit  of  the  hive,"  the  de- 
sire to  co-operate,  to  "play  the  game." 

15 — As  far  as  possible,  to  select  and  educate  under- 
studies for  every  position  of  importance. 

The  Try-and-Fail  Method  of  Employment 

It  seems  that  in  this  concrete  statement  is  pretty  well 
developed  the  idea  of  trained  brains  guiding  the  unskilled. 
It  is  regrettable  that  less  than  two  per  cent  of  the  managers 
know  anything  about  this  element  in  organization.  Even 
the  more  efficient  managers  hire  and  discharge  men  on  a 
pure  rule-of-thumb  basis.  I  know  one  manager  who  will 
have  no  men  in  his  employ  who  wear  rubber  heels;  he  says 
they  are  dishonest.  Another  man  refuses  to  employ  blondes, 
because  he  says  "they  are  not  reliable."  The  same  man  re- 
fuses to  have  any  college  graduates  in  the  place  for  the  ob- 
vious reason  (not  however  admitted  by  himself)  that  trained 
brains  generally  generate  new  thoughts  and  new  ideas.  As 
Herbert  N.  Casson  says :  "New  ideas  hurt  some  minds  as 
much  as  new  shoes  hurt  some  feet." 

Some  managers  assert,  "No  clerk  is  worth  more  than 
eight  dollars  a  week."  Of  course  not.  No  clerk  is  worth 
more  than   a  manager  thinks  she  is,  because  she  will  not  be 


94 


WHAT'S    THE    USE? 


made  more  valuable.  But  that  doesn't  make  eight  dollars  a 
week  a  standard  of  clerical  value  by  any  means.  Put  that 
eight-dollar-a-week  clerk  at  work  under  training  with 
standard  bonuses  and  scientific  management  and  it  is  com- 
mon experience  that  the  average  is  increased  forty  to  fifty 
per  cent,  and,  in  some  cases,  as  much  as  three  hundred 
per  cent. 

In  an  incandescent  lamp  manufacturing  concern,  a 
doctor  saw  girls  threading  filaments  on  a  piece-work  wage 
basis.  Some  were  so  near  sighted  they  could  not  make 
sufficient  speed  to  gain  a  decent  wage.  If  the  employment 
manager  had  simply  asked  each  applicant  to  thread  a  needle 
he  would  have  cut  out  a  wasteful  try-and-fail  policy  of  em- 
ployment which  had  caused  thousands  of  dollars  of  loss  to 
the  company. 

Applying  the  "What's  the  Use?"  standard  to  each 
of  Dr.  Blackford's  suggestions,  the  function  of  the  em- 
ployment department  will  cease  to  be  the  finding  of  as 
many  cheap  people  as  possible  and  broaden  into  the  find- 
ing of  as  many  competent  workers  as  possible.  Any  man 
who  is  employed  in  a  business  can  take  these  functions 
and  apply  them  to  himself  and  his  fellow  employes  and 
soon  find  the  use-value  of  this  kind  of  analysis  in  the  em- 
ployment department. 

Charles  Babbage,  the  father  of  computing  machinery, 
early  in  the  nineteenth  century,  stated  the  whole  prin- 
ciple on  which  the  functioning  of  men  and  machines  is 
based,  when  he  said: 

"The  effect  of  the  division  of  labor  both  mechanical 
and  mental  is,  that  it  enables  us  to  purchase  and  apply 
to  each  process  precisely  that  quantity  of  skill  and 
knowledge  which  is  required  for  it:  we  avoid  employ- 
ing any  part  of  the  time  of  a  man  who  can  get  eight  or 
ten  shillings  a  day  for  his  skill  in  tempering  needles,  in 
turning  a  wheel,  which  can  be  done  for  six  pence  a  day; 


EFFICIENCY     AND     COMMON     SENSE  g^ 

and  we  equally  avoid  the  loss  arising  from  an  accom- 
plished mathematician  in  performing  the  lowest  process 
of  arithmetic."* 

What  can  any  man  know  of  advertising  who  knows  ad- 
vertising only  as  so  much  type,  ink,  paper,  circulations,  and 
rates?  What  can  a  man  know  of  advertising  automobiles 
who  knows  only  the  cylinder  measure,  the  thrust  of  pis- 
tons, the  heat  formulae  of  steel  for  shafts,  the  stress  and 
strain  standards  of  certain  metals?  What  can  a  man 
know  of  selling  who  knows  only  the  technique  of  the 
articles  to  be  sold?  What  does  a  clerk  of  accounting 
knov/  about  advertising  and  selling  who  knows  only  when 
to  credit  and  when  to  debit? 

What  can  a  general  manager  know  of  management  who 
fears  originality,  who  despises  theory,  and  who  fails  to 
grasp  the  utility  of  science? 

What  is  the  use-value  of  their  equipment,  to  them- 
selves, to  their  trade,  to  society? 

Such  knowledge  is  means  to  an  end. 

We  must  know  the  value  of  things,  not  only  the  price 
but  the  real  value. 

The  world  hasn't  time  to  wait  while  a  man  is  trying  a 
lot  of  things.  Business  success  will  not  wait  while  an  em- 
ployer tries  first  this  man  and  then  another;  time  flies, 
things  are  doing;  and  the  business  machine  must  work  at 
high  speed  nearly  all  the  time. 

Efficiency  Charts 

Every  employer  should  keep  an  efficiency  chart  of  each 
employe.  It  is  the  common  sense  way  of  determining  his 
value.  It  should  take  two  forms,  one  made  out  before  he 
is  hired  (and  we  know  too  little  of  what  we  should  know 


•  "Primer  of   Scientific   Management,"   Gilbreth, 


96 


WHAT'S    THE    USE? 


about  our  people  before  we  hire  them)  and  the  other  a 
record  of  his  work  with  the  house. 

Personal  Data — Date  entered  employ,  position  held, 
previous  experience,  education. 

General  Data  (by  the  Manager) — Character,  health,  in- 
telligence, capacity  for  learning. 

Results  (by  Head  of  Department) — Work  well  organ- 
ized, done  promptly,  done  thoroughly,  proper  con- 
trol of  expense,  results  from  subordinates,  subordi- 
nates developed,  training  others,  initiative  and  "get 
there,"  regular,  punctual,  accurate,  safe  judgment, 
concentration,  sticks-to-it-and-gets-it-done,  progres- 
siveness,  studies  and  always  learning,  knowledge  of 
people,  the  business,  the  product. 

Outlook — Studies,  willing  to  pay  the  price  of  success, 
handicaps,  ambition,  enthusiasm,  courage,  energy, 
suggestion  of  use  to  business  generally,  helpfulness 
to  others.* 

Such  a  chart  should  be  checked  by  the  head  of  the  de- 
partment at  least  four  times  a  year;  and  frequent  talks 
should  be  had  with  those  men  who  are  shown  to  be  unusually 
weak  in  some  particular  thing. 

As  the  attempt  of  naval  architects  is  to  devise  a  vessel 
that  will  give  so  little  physical  discomfort  that  a  man 
may  not  know  that  he  has  left  the  land  to  cross  the  storm- 
ruffled  sea,  so  it  is  the  work  of  the  educator  and  the  phil- 
osopher to  devise  a  scheme  of  life  by  which  a  man  may  go 
from  the  cradle  to  the  grave  least  troubled  by  the  storms 
of  life. 


•  "Choosing   a   Vocation,"   by   Professor   Frank    Parsons,    former   head    of   the 
Vocational  Bureau,  Civic  Service  House,  Boston. 


PART  III 

The   Rules  of  the   Game 


Then,  what  are  these  rules?  , 

/f  we  have  rules — lefs  have  them. 

But,  my  friend  lefs  begin  with  yourself,  the  first  rule 
of  the  game  is  the  lule  of  YOU. 


CHAPTER    VIII 

DOERS  AND  THINKERS 

Men  suffer  most  from  lack  of  application  in  forming  a 
clear  idea  of  the  subjects  on  which  they  are  employed. — 
Frederic  II. 

An  American  Error 

"The  American  executive  is  not  a  thinker;  he  is  a 
doer."  This  has  been  the  boast  of  our  commercial  Solons 
for  a  hundred  years.  There  is  a  suspicion  growing  in  the 
minds  of  many  that  there  was  never  a  more  impotent  and 
silly  boast  in  the  world.  The  boast  is,  however,  repeated 
in  varying  language  in  most  speeches  before  commercial 
clubs  and  conventions.  But  in  the  technical  offices  of 
factories  and  highly  organized  corporations  there  is  well 
grounded  conviction  that  this  boast  is  the  root  of  our  ex- 
pensive waste  of  energy,  time,  and  materials.  Every  execu- 
tive must  be  able  to  do  a  thing  better  than  a  subordi- 
nate, in  the  sense  that  he  should  know  how  to  get  it  done, 
and  must  know  when  it  is  done  in  the  better  way.  If  he 
doesn't,  he  is  at  the  mercy  of  his  subordinate. 

To  obtain  greater  efficiency,  the  executive  must  make 
a  careful  analysis  of  the  methods  and  actual  results  of  the 
work  of  each  subordinate  and  be  prepared  to  aid  in  the 
improvement  of  the  work  by  expert  advice  and  training. 
Inefficient  workers  are  the  inevitable  result  of  vague 
thinking  on  the  part  of  the  executive. 

A  Creed  of  Humility 

The  first  rule  of  the  game  will  be  based  on  a  creed  of 
humility,  stated  by  the  Hon.  William  C.  Redfield.* 

•  "Some  Phases  of  the  Business  Outlook,"  an  address  before  the  Business 
Men's  Club,  Cincinnati,  O.,  February  lo,   1912. 

99 


lOO  THE    RULES     OF    THE    GAME 

"I  have  tried  to  speak  plainly  to  you  of  our  own  need 
of  self-help — the  same  thing  in  our  industrial  life  that  we 
teach  our  children  in  our  private  lives.  Let  us  therefore 
lay  down  certain  laws  for  ourselves : 

"A  thing  is  not  right  because  we  do  it. 

"A  method  is  not  good  because  we  use  it. 

"Equipment  is  not  the  best  because  we  own  it. 

"The  best  of  us  have  much  to  learn. 

"None  of  us  can  afford  to  be  deceived  about  our  own 

affairs. 
"It  is  better  by  self-catechism  to  find  and  correct  our 

own  faults  than  to  have  our  customers  do  it  for  us." 

The  terrific  waste  of  man-power;  i.  e.,  in  skill,  faith, 
and  experience,  by  putting  accent  on  doing,  and  not 
thinking,  is  apparent  in  the  work  of  the  day.  The  dis- 
tinction between  doers  and  thinkers  is  artificial  but  is 
none  the  less  real  in  the  minds  of  the  average  men. 

The  Place  of  the  Thinker 

In  every  business  there  is  a  place  for  thinkers  as  well 
as  doers.  They  are  generally  distinctive  types.  The  diffi- 
culty is  not  with  the  thinker  or  with  the  doer,  but  with 
the  system  of  employment  which  makes  no  distinction  be- 
tween these  types  in  setting  them  at  work. 

Thinkers  are  given  production  jobs,  and  doers  placed 
at  managing.  The  result  is  confusion,  waste,  haste,  and 
upheaval  of  the  organization. 

A  man  may  be  able  to  make  the  sale  of  a  horse  to  a 
very  difficult  customer,  and  yet  be  unable  to  describe  how 
he  did  it  or  pick  the  argument  that  finally  won  the 
customer. 

A  man  may  knock  another  down  with  a  club,  and  yet 
be  a  very  poor  judge  of  woods;  and  the  mere  knowledge 
of  woods  would  not  help  him  do  the  job  of  knocking  the 
man  down  any  more  efficiently. 

But — and  this  is  the  important  distinction  of  thinking 


DOERS    AND    THINKERS  101 

— the  fight  in  business  is  to  make  the  man  who  pays  the 
bills  realize  that  he  doesn't  necessarily  know  everythini^- 
about  the  value  of  the  service  just  because  he  knows  how 
to  get  the  money  that  pays  the  price. 

The  question  is,  did  the  service  pay  its  way?  Nothinij 
that  cannot  pay  its  way  in  coins  of  value  to  the  heart, 
soul,  or  mind  of  man  is  worth  while.  If  it  cannot  pay  its 
way,  if  it  is  of  no  use,  it  is  not  true,  and  it  is  not  valuable. 

Almost  without  exception,  concerns  make  the  mistake 
of  selecting  their  best  salesman  to  act  as  teacher  when 
establishing  training  schools  for  salesmen.  If  a  little 
thought  were  given  to  the  requirements  of  such  work  we 
should  ask  these  two  questions: 

I — Can  this  man  teach? 

2 — Can  he  teach  how  to  sell  our  product? 

The  first  requirement  has  absolutely  nothing  to  do 
with  the  particular  business,  but  has  all  to  do  with  the 
man's  ability  to  fill  that  job  as  distinguished  from  that 
of  a  factory  superintendent  or  stenographer. 

The  second  is  a  matter  of  experience  and  analysis. 

If  cold  analysis  did  not  demonstrate  the  foregoing  to 
be  true,  a  careful  collection  of  data  would  prove  it.  Of 
twenty-two  sales  training  schools  I  investigated,  but  two 
had  as  teachers  men  who  were  successful  salesmen  and  one 
of  those  "was  only  a  fairly  successful  teacher  and  he 
knew  it." 

The  doer  type  fails  to  appreciate  his  constant  indebted- 
ness to  the  thinker,  but  it  is  a  failure  which  brings  loss  of 
efficiency,  and  the  unresting  pain  of  the  doer  who  wears 
himself  out  in  vainly  trying  to  keep  up  with  the  pro- 
cession. 

If  men  of  the  doer  type  really  believed  their  own  con- 
tention they  would  not  so  persistently  try  to  do  what 


102         THE  RULES  OF  THE  GAME 

they  object   to  in   the  thinker — tell   other  people   what 
to  do. 

The  day  will  come  when  the  doer,  the  great  obvious 
factor  in  life,  will  know  Science  and  make  her  his  helper 
in  reaching  heights  of  artistic  excellence  never  possible 
until  he  has  reverently  dwelt  for  a  time  on  the  cold,  calm 
Himalayas  of  Truth. 

The  Problem  of  Business  Training 

Here,  in  part,  is  a  letter  I  received  some  time  ago  from 
a  department  head  of  one  of  the  largest  manufacturing 
jewelry  houses  in  New  England :  "Somebody  once  asked  a 
great  teacher  a  question,  and  got  his  answer:  'What  shall 
I  do  to  enter  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven?'  and  the  answer 
began  with  'Sell.'  Selling  seems  to  constitute  the  larger 
portion  of  the  pursuit  of  happiness;  but  none  are  taught 
to  sell.  Teaching  is  confined  to  an  elaboration  of  the 
three  R's,  which  is  a  good  beginning.  Our  young  men 
and  women  are  growing  up  in  ignorance  of  the  funda- 
mental requirements  of  business.  I  would  like  to  see 
your  problem  of  training  stated  from  the  standpoint  of 
a  youth  who  wants  to  be  a  salesman  and  is  conscious  of 
his  limitations. 

"Your  humble  servant  emerged  from  college  with  the 
firm  conviction  that  he  was  a  dunce,  having  failed  to  make 
progress  there.  It  took  eight  years  to  get  a  start  in 
business  and  revise  that  opinion,  and  to  realize  the  woeful 
lack  of  training  in  the  direction  of  your  writing.  My  best 
friends  assured  me  that  I  would  never  be  a  salesman;  but 
having  convinced  myself  that  salesmanship  was  necessary 
to  business  success,  I  spent  four  years,  not  only  of  work 
and  study,  but  of  hardship  and  privations,  and  wasted 
three-fourths  of  it  through  not  knowing  how  or  where  to 
start.    Twelve  years  out  of  college,  and  just  beginning  to 


DOERS    AND    THINKERS 


103 


learn!  And  my  chances  were  much  better  than  the  aver- 
age. Then  what  chance  has  the  average  young  man — 
that  is  what  I  want  you  to  tell  me — or  rather,  what 
chances  has  he?    What  shall  he  do?" 

There  is  the  indictment,  and  the  inspiration  of  what 
I  would  say.  We  may  not  hope  to  state  the  rules  of  the 
game  in  words  that  lazy  minds  may  know  and  under- 
stand, but  we  may  guide  them  towards  self-education  in 
the  rules  of  the  game  of  right-living. 

Shall  we  find  it  necessary  to  go  further  than  the  often 
repeated  plaint  of  those  who  have  found  out  too  late  the 
value  of  education:  "I  would  give  all  I  have  now  for  a  few 
years  at  college;  I  feel  the  need  of  it  every  day" — to  be  con- 
vinced of  the  necessity  for  this  education  ? 

Do  you  ask  yourself  why  men  make  this  plaint? 

Because  they  find  so  many  things  that  are  inexplicable 
and  that  do  not  respond  with  satisfactory  solutions  to 
the  real  knowledge  they  have.  They  seek  a  vague,  un- 
certain something  which  they  feel  would  make  everything 
plain,  if  they  could  but  grasp  it. 

What  Is  Truth? 

Few  have  even  a  fair  comprehension  of  any  standard 
of  truth. 

What  is  Truth? 

Age  old  and  ever  beckoning  problem  of  the  world ! 

Let  America's  great  philosopher  answer  it :  "True 
ideas,"  William  James  tells  us,  "are  those  that  we  can 
assimilate,  validate,  corroborate,  and  verify.  False  ideas 
are  those  that  we  cannot.  Truth  lives,  in  fact,  on  a  credit 
system.  Our  thoughts  and  beliefs  pass  so  long  as  nothing 
challenges  them,  just  as  banknotes  pass  so  long  as  nobody 
refuses  them.  But  this  all  points  to  direct,  face-to-face 
verifications  somewhere,  without  which  the  fabric  of  truth 


104 


THE    RULES     OF    THE    GAME 


collapses  like  a  financial  system  with  no  cash  basis  what- 
ever. You  accept  my  verification  of  one  thing,  I  yours  of 
another.  We  trade  each  other's  truths.  But  beliefs  veri- 
fied concretely  by  somebody,  are  the  posts  of  the  whole 
superstructure." 

The  rule-of-thumb  man  knows  that  a  thing  happened 
— that's  all.  He  doesn't  know  whether  it  will  ever  happen 
again. 

The  Point  of  View 

As  Emerson  said : 

"The  scientist  looks  at  a  result  and  says: 
"'How  was  it  done?     How  much  did  it  cost?'" 

The  practical  man  says: 

"Wasn't  that   a   fine   piece   of   work   we   did?     Let's 
keep  it  up!" 

The  educated  man,  whether  he  be  a  college  man  or 
not,  wants  to  know  how  and  why  and,  because  of  that 
impulse,  he  must  study  the  detail  of  means  and  methods 
in  the  light  of  the  concrete  experience  of  as  many  as  he 
can  gain.  Otherwise  he  becomes  one  of  those  mere  imi- 
tators, of  whom  Kipling  wrote: 

"They  copied  all  they  could  follow, 
But  they  couldn't  follow  my  mind; 
And  I  left  them  sweating  and  stealing, 
A  year  and  a  half  behind." 

Men  Who  Do  Not  Make  Good 

Of  the  thousands  working  in  office  and  factory;  some 
are  half  educated,  blindly  groping,  without  faith;  still 
others  are  hoping  against  hope;  while  others,  cynically 
trusting  to  luck  to  hide  their  ignorance,  are  prepared  to 
bluff  their  way  into  success. 

Consider    the    honest    and    well-intentioned,    but    ill- 


DOERS    AND    THINKERS  105 

trained  men  who  do  not  make  good.  They  have  come  to 
you  and  me  with  their  "pink  shps"  in  their  hands,  with  an  I- 
have-done-my-best  on  their  Hps.  I  felt  guihy  when  I  had  to 
say,  "You  have  not  made  good,"  because  I  knew  it  was 
not  their  fault  so  much  as  it  was  that  of  the  vicious,  waste- 
ful system  under  which  they  worked. 

Out  of  this  amalgam  of  old  commercial  conditions  has 
come  a  success  that  has  cost  us  a  tremendous  sum  in 
wasted  time,  money,  and  lives,  through  lack  of  individual 
and  commercial  efficiency. 


CHAPTER     IX 

THE    RULE    OF    THUMB 

That  man  must  lose  his  life  to  Und  it,  is  indeed  the 
deepest  paradox  of  the  world.  The  Thinker  must  learn  to 
do,  must  learn  to  put  truth  to  the  test  of  living — the  Doer 
must  learn  to  put  his  results  to  the  test  of  value  standards 
— and  each  must  take  his  place  as  the  answers  are. 

The  New  Industrial  Day 

Secretary  Redfield,  in  his  book  "The  New  Industrial 
Day,"  gives  an  illuminating  expression  to  the  national 
significance  of  elificiency  as  against  rule-of-thumb: 

"The  day  of  rough  and  ready  contest  as  with  the 
bludgeon  and  the  fist,  has  gone  in  our  industrial  fight, 
and  we  must  use  keener  and  more  accurate  weapons  and 
carry  on  the  contest  at  longer  range  and  with  more  trained 
antagonists  than  those  with  whom  until  recently  we  have 
had  to  deal. 

"As  yet  only  the  men  of  vision,  the  few  farsighted 
captains  of  industry,  have  grasped  and  acted  upon  this 
new  outlook.  So  splendid  have  been  the  results  of 
our  industrial  growth;  so  brilliant  the  victories  of  our 
manufacturers  at  home  and  abroad;  so  astonishing  the 
inventive  skill  with  which  by  special  tools  and  new  ap- 
pliances, we  have  reduced  the  cost  of  our  production; 
so  matchless  has  been  the  courage  with  which  some  of 
us  have  forsaken  the  old  and  taken  up  the  new;  that  we 
are  apt  to  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  these  achievements 
and  this  brilliancy  and  fine  courage  have  been  the  char- 
acteristics of  the  few  rather  than  of  the  many,  and  that 
most  of  our  industries  are  still  laggard  in  the  race. 

The  Shadow  of  the  Old  Day 

"The  day  of  the  rule-of-thumb  in  our  factories  is 
not  yet  ended,  though  its  sun  is  setting.  Many  super- 
intendents manage  today  as  they  managed  of  yore,  true 

1 06 


THE    RULE     OF    THUMB  I07 

offspring  of  the  industrial  conditions  under  which  they 
grew  up.  There  is  a  fearful  waste  of  energy,  of  human 
strength  and  thought  and  even  of  life;  and  waste  also 
of  time,  material,  and  of  attention  given  to  relatively 
trivial  things  while  more  serious  matters  pass  un- 
noticed. We  have  depended  much  heretofore  on  mere 
drive,  or  as  we  call  it  'hustling' — crowding  into  the 
compressed  hours  of  busy  days  more  and  more,  and 
winning  out  by  intensity  of  effort  and  by  dint  of  strenu- 
ous application,  rather  than  by  the  scientific  efficiency 
which  saves  all  waste  and  applies  the  principles  of  the 
least  effort  to  produce  the  greatest  results. 

"There  are  still  men  representing  the  old  type  who 
say  with  pride  that  they  have  never  taken  a  vacation, 
as  if  such  waste  of  human  vitality,  such  failure  to  re- 
store the  normal  drain  on  strength,  could  ever  be  wise 
or  creditable.  Some  of  us  have  inherited  from  the 
needs  of  our  fathers  a  doctrine  which  almost  says  that 
work,  merely  as  work,  exertion  purely  as  exertion,  eflfort 
merely  as  effort,  is  itself  a  desirable  thing.  There  are 
many  among  us,  too,  who  from  habit  or  necessity,  and, 
in  part  at  least,  as  a  result  of  training,  keep  on  doing 
well,  and  planning  well  and  managing  well  according  to 
rule-of-thumb  standards,  without  thinking  whether  there 
may  not  be  some  better,  easier,  more  productive,  and  less 
costly  method." 

"What  is  the  remedy?"  is  the  impatient  cry.  We  must 
know  what  prolongs  Hfe  in  the  human  being  and  what 
destroys  it.  What  are  the  rules  of  the  game  of  Hfe?  What 
acts,  what  conduct  always  results  in  disaster — what  acts, 
what  conduct  produce  the  most  beneficent  results?  We  must 
learn  from  the  past ;  must  find  those  concrete,  tested,  ac- 
curate facts  which  are  the  common  attributes  of  all  .successful 
or  unsuccessful  experience. 

"My  Business  Is  Different" 

Right  here  the  American  will  have  to  learn  something. 
In  this  land  of  personal  liberty  where  the  doctrine  of  in- 
dividuality has  led  us  to  believe  that  any  man  is  as  good 
as  any  other  man  both  in  price  and  value,  we  shall  have 


I08  THE    RULES     OF    THE    GAME 

to  develop  a  larger  realization  of  the  applicability  of  com- 
mon experience  to  the  solution  of  individual  problems. 

"Our  city  is  different,"  cried  New  York,  when  Muni- 
cipal Research  work  was  begun.  "Our  situation  is  differ- 
ent," said  Standard  Oil  when  advertising  was  proposed  a 
few  years  ago,  but  now  the  corporation  has  come  to  ad- 
vertising. "Politics  is  different,"  said  Senator  Hanna, 
when  it  was  proposed  to  spend  $300,000  in  the  magazine 
and  newspaper  display  columns  to  fight  free  silver.  In 
1908  Hitchcock  went  over  his  card  index,  paid  for  ad- 
vertising in  the  magazines,  and  won.  In  1901  "Our  busi- 
ness is  different,"  said  the  banker,  when  asked  to  adver- 
tise for  deposits  or  to  sell  bonds,  but  Vanderlip,  with  the 
salesman's  instinct,  organized  a  sales  department  for  the 
National  City  Bank. 

A  banker  in  Pittsburg  told  me  he  wouldn't  give  me 
certain  information  about  the  advertising  of  his  mail- 
order department  because  "he  had  paid  for  it."  His  ad- 
vertising was  a  failure,  but  he  didn't  know  it  for  two  years. 
He  could  have  found  it  out  at  a  saving  of  $25,000  if  he 
had  been  willing  to  listen  to  experience,  but  "his  business 
was  different." 

Of  all  the  silly,  childish  cants  in  this  world,  the  cant 
"my  business  is  different"  is  the  most  tormentingly  pro- 
vincial. 

The  Essence  of  Individuality 

Of  course  everything  has  an  individuality,  but  individ- 
ual differences  lie  in  methods,  not  in  principles.  Yet  the 
right  to  individuality  embodies  the  obligation  to  be  right 
even  as  to  methods.  Anyone  who  has  read  Maeterlinck's 
"The  Bee"  must  be  struck  with  the  possibilities  of  life 
where  instinct  keeps  the  animal  true  to  the  law. 

If  we  had  not  the  power  of  choice — of  doing  a  thing 


THE    RULE    OF    THUMB 


109 


right  or  wrong,  we  would  enjoy  nature's  efficiencies  by 
instinct.  But  we  have  the  power  of  choice,  hence  we  have 
the  conscious  happiness  of  success  or  the  black  despair  of 
failure — and  yet  may  hope,  because  we  can  think. 

What  has  been  the  result  of  scientific  thinking  in  busi- 
ness?    What  are  the  laws  gleaned  from  experience? 

The  Geometrical  Increase  of  Expense 

Principles  only  may  be  stated.  It  was  a  great  and 
startling  truth  which  A.  M.  Fisher,  the  investigator  of 
business  economies,  gave  the  world  in: 

"Revenues  increase  arithmetically,  but  expenses  in- 
crease geometrically." 

What  vistas  of  possibilities  and  explanations  it  opens 
up  to  the  manager  who  keeps  this  law  before  him ! 

The  stenographer  in  a  small  Western  factory  forgot 
to  put  a  street  address  on  an  envelope  containing  an  ac- 
ceptance of  a  profifer  for  the  factory  output.  The  letter 
was  delayed  nine  hours,  the  prospect  bought  of  another 
house;  the  factory  had  to  close  down  and  fifty  people 
were  thrown  out  of  employment  for  fourteen  weeks. 

A  small  error  thus  multiplies  its  results  in  a  chain  of 
effects  like  bacteria  in  a  wound,  until  the  whole  body  is 
affected,  and  even  the  life  may  be  sacrificed.  This  is  the 
law  of  sequence  at  work. 

Most  of  you  remember  Franklin's  story;  for  want  of 
a  nail  the  shoe  was  lost,  and  so  on,  until  finally  the  king- 
dom was  lost. 

The  thoughtful  rule-of-thumb  man  applies  to  all  his 
troubles  a  panacea  of  individual  experience.  The  stenog- 
rapher, making  such  an  error,  takes  her  discharge  with  a 
resolution  never  again  to  forget  to  put  a  street  address 
on  an  envelope,  or  calls  it  "bad  luck  that  a  very  natural 
jnistake  should  produce  such  a  big  result." 


I  lo  THE    RULES     OF    THE    GAME 

Loss  Prevention 

No  method  is  evolved  by  the  riile-of-thunib  employe 
to  prevent  such  happenings,  because  the  result  was  not 
recognized  as  flowing  from  a  natural  condition.  The  ste- 
nographer's memory  was  poor,  as  most  human  memories 
are,  and  the  sales  manager's  system  of  handling  corre- 
spondence was  inefiicient,  because  he  didn't  have  a  check 
])y  which  he  would  insure  himself  against  the  effect  of 
poor  memories  dealing  with  the  most  important  transac- 
tion of  his  business. 

The  Burden  of  System 

Again,  the  small  manufacturer  starts  out  with  a  simple 
cost  system;  i.  e.,  so  much  for  time,  so  much  for  labor,  so 
much  for  materials,  so  much  to  pay  the  boss's  salary,  the 
selling  expense,  and  the  office  help,  with  a  bit  added  for 
profit — all  of  which  makes  the  selling  price.  Demand 
and  production  grow;  men  are  added,  then  more  foremen, 
superintendents,  departments,  and  records  at  every  step. 
Every  time  a  record  is  added  there  come  more  recapitu- 
lations and  comparative  reports. 

One  manufacturer  woke  up  one  day  to  the  fact  that 
he  was  using  one  hundred  and  twenty-four  different  forms 
in  his  cost  department,  requiring  fourteen  times  as  many 
people  to  handle  a  cost  system  which  was  handling  the 
records  of  but  three  times  the  original  output.  Another 
specialty  manufacturer  found  that  his  system  required 
five  times  as  many  people  in  the  office  as  it  did  when  he 
was  doing  one-half  the  business. 

All  these  people  were  writing  history.  But  there  were 
no  experts  who  knew  how  to  interpret  it. 

System  was  becoming  conventionalized,  which  is  not 
the  fault  of  system  as  such,  but  of  an  attitude  toward 
system.     System  is  not  an  end;  it  is  not  a  principle,  but 


THE    RULE    OF    THUMB  m 

only  a  method  by  which  the  appHcation  of  principles  may 
be  recorded. 

The  Conditions  of  Operative  Inefficiency 

This  condition  comes  as  a  result  of  two  main  causes, 
as  stated  by  Mr.  Harrington  Emerson,  true  to  the  law,  laid 
down  by  Fisher : 

First — Separate  operations  are  inefficient. 

Second — Separate  operations  are  often  connected  in 
dependent  sequences  so  that  the  arithmetical  ineffi- 
ciency of  each  increases  geometrically  in  the  com- 
bination. 

It  is  common  experience  that  profits  decrease  for  unit 
of  sales  as  sales  increase  in  bulk. 

Going  a  step  further,  we  are  told  that  separate  opera- 
tions are  inefficient,  because :  "Conditions  for  favorable 
operation  are  deficient,"  which  has  to  do  with  the  organi- 
zation, equipment,  and  environment  in  a  factory,  office, 
or  territory.  Again,  "The  operation  itself  is  inefficiently 
performed,"  which  is  connected  with  the  handling  and 
equipment  of  the  man-stuff  employed. 

The  Conditions  of  Operating  Efficiency 

The  efficient  operation  of  a  business  must  be  accom- 
plished through  department  managers  who  work  out  their 
separate  plans  and  purposes  true  to  the  common  stand- 
ards. Each  man  in  a  department  must  work  true  to  the 
plan  and  purpose  of  the  departmxnt's  part  in  the  whole 
scheme  of  the  organization,  just  as  each  man  must  work 
out  his  life  true  to  the  part  he  has  to  play  in  the  social 
organization. 

No  man  can  stand  alone  in  life  or  work  alone  in  busi- 
ness and  at  the  same  time  obtain  for  himself  the  same 
rewards  in  money,  or  satisfaction,  or  influence,  or  happi- 
ness, as  when  he  works  with  and  by  and   through   the 


112  THE    RULES     OF    THE    GAME 

house,  the  department,  and  social  body  for  the  good  of 
that  all,  of  which  he  is  a  part.  Bees  don't  ignore  this 
law;  man  fails  when  he  does. 

After  a  man  is  found  to  be  mentally,  physically  and 
morally  right,  then  we  must  surround  him  with  such  con- 
ditions, physical  and  mental,  as  will  tend  to  keep  him  at 
highest  efficiency. 

We  must  equip  him  with  such  instruments  as  enable 
him  to  produce  the  greatest  amount  of  his  best  work. 
After  this,  there  is  another  thing:  We  must,  by  careful 
analysis  from  competent  experience,  fix  the  place  of  his 
work  in  the  entire  system  and  standardize  the  best  way 
to  do  that  work. 

The  Danger  of  Over-Specialization 

It  remained  for  Julius  Kruttschnitt,  director  of  main- 
tenance and  operation  of  the  Harriman  lines,  to  realize 
that  over-specialization  was  the  bane  of  work  requiring 
close  co-operation  for  efficiency,  and  that  the  scheme  of 
organization  encouraged  this  high  specialization.  So  he 
changed  the  scheme.  He  dropped  highly  specialized 
titles,  put  men  under  broader  designations,  and  made 
them  responsible  for  special  and  general  things  as  well. 

He  made  them  think  more  of  the  railroad  at  large  and 
less  of  their  personal  jobs  and  departments.  It  was  a  psycho- 
logical distinction,  truly  scientific,  and,  of  course,  it  worked.* 

Four  departments  in  a  certain  business  were  hiring 
stenographers,  each  on  a  separate  basis,  at  an  average 
wage  of  $18.25.  A  central  stenographic  bureau  was  cre- 
ated for  the  hiring  of  material  and  the  coaching  of  appli- 
cants; the  output  was  increased  twenty-three  per  cent  and 
the  wages  increased  to  $20.00  a  worker,  but  the  pay-roll  de- 
creased sixteen  per  cent. 


•  See  "Modern  Organization,"  by  Charles  D.  Hine. 


CHAPTER    X 

THE  RULES  OF  EFFICIENCY 

The  experts  have  found  these  rules  of  the  game  at  the 
bottom  of  all  business  efficiency.* 

The  Rules  of  Industrial  Efficiency 

First — Complete  and  exact  knowledge  of  the  best  way 

of  doing  the  work. 
This  applies  to  our  individual  lives  as  well. 
Second — Instructors,  competent  and  willing  to  teach 
the  workers  how  to  use  the  information  most  ef- 
fectively. 
Why  is  this  not  done  in  the  schools? 
Third — Wages  for  efficient  work  high  enough  to  make 
a  competent  man  feel  that  they  are  worth  striving 
for. 
This  will  come  industrially  when  we  educate  managers 
and  proprietors  in   the   school   of  efficiency  where   high 
wages  do  not  mean  high  costs. 

Fourth — A  distinct  loss  in  wages  in  case  a  certain  de- 
gree of  efficiency  is  not  obtained. 
So   the   naval   men   figure   it;   and   a   rigorous   court 
martial  always  awaits  the  captain  who  loses  his  ship,  and 
generally  a  court  of  inquiry  when  lesser  accidents  happen 
to  impair  the  efficiency. 

Some  Rules  of  Accounting  Efficiency 

Apply  those  rules  to  your  bookkeeping  department. 
How  do  you  know  that  there  is  not  a  cheaper  and  more 


•  See  "Primer  of  Scientific  Management"  by  Frank  B.  Gilbreth. 


114 


THE    RULES    OF    THE    GAME 


efficient  system  of  keeping  your  accounts?  There  are 
literally  thousands  of  retailers  failing  to  make  money  be- 
cause they  haven't  a  bookkeeping  system  that  tells  them 
what  they  are  doing.  After  a  lengthy  investigation  of 
many  businesses,  the  National  Association  of  Credit  Men 
formulated  the  following  simple  rules  for  business-like 
accounting: 

"First — Charge  interest  on  the  net  amount  of  your  total 

investment  at  the  beginning  of  your  business  year,  ex- 

cUisive  of  all  real  estate. 
Second — Charge    rental    on    all    real    estate    or    buildings 

owned  by  you  and  used  in  your  business  at  a  rate  equal 

to  that  which  you  would  receive  if  renting  or  leasing 

it  to  others.* 
Third — Charge,  in  addition  to  what  you  pay  for  hired  help, 

an  amount  equal  to  what  your  services  would  be  worth 

to  others;  also  treat  in  like  manner  the  services  of  any 

member  of  your  family  employed  in  the  business,  but  not 

on  your  regular  pay-roll. 
Fourth — Charge   depreciation   on   all    goods   carried   over, 

on  which  you  may  have  to  make  a  less  price  because 

of  change  in  style,  damage,  or  other  cause. 
Fifth — Charge    depreciation    on   buildings,    tools,    fixtures, 

or  anything  else  suffering  from  age  or  wear  and  tear. 
Sixth — Charge  the  amounts  donated  or  subscriptions  paid. 
Seventh — Charge  all  fixed  expense,  such  as  taxes,  insurance, 

water,  lights,  fuel,  etc. 
Eighth — Charge  all  incidental  expenses,  such  as  drayage, 

postage,  office  supplies,  livery,  or  expense  of  horses  or 

wagons,  telegrams  and  'phones,  advertising,  canvassing, 

etc. 
Ninth — Charge  losses  of  every  character,  including  goods 

stolen  or  sent  out  and  not  charged,  allowances  made  to 

customers,  bad  debts,  etc. 
Tenth — Charge  collection  expense. 
Eleventh — Charge  any  expense  not  enumerated  above. 
Twelfth — When  you  have  ascertained  what  the  sum  of  all 

•  Some  accountants  object  to  these  practices,   but  that   is   not  the   subject   of 
our  discussion. 


THE    RULES    OF    EFFICIENCY  n^ 

the  foregoing  items  is,  prove  it  by  your  books,  and  you 
will  have  your  total  expense  for  the  year;  then  divide 
this  figure  by  the  total  of  your  sales,  and  it  will  show  the 
per  cent  which  it  has  cost  you  to  do  business. 

Thirteenth — Take  this  per  cent  and  deduct  it  from  the 
price  of  any  article  you  have  sold,  then  subtract  from 
the  remainder  what  it  cost  you  (invoice  price  and 
freight),  and  the  result  will  show  your  net  profit  or  loss 
on  the  article. 

Fourteenth — Go  over  the  selling  prices  of  the  various 
articles  you  handle  and  see  where  you  stand  as  to  profits, 
and  then  get  busy  in  putting  your  selling  figures  on  a 
profitable  basis,  and  talk  it  over  with  your  competitor  as 
well." 

Yet  I  am  told  it  will  take  nine  years,  at  the  present 
rate,  if  no  new  businesses  were  started  and  none  failed. 
to  put  the  retailers  of  the  country  on  the  sound  basis  of 
such  simple  principles. 

Instructing  the  New  Clerk 

Did  you  ever  hear  the  new  clerk  get  instructions  on 
how  to  handle  the  bookkeeping  work  he  is  given? 

Why  shouldn't  such  instructions  be  dictated  by  the 
most  efficient  clerk  you  have  in  the  place,  and  made 
thorough,  complete,  and  intelligible  from  the  beginning? 
"Takes  too  much  time"  is  the  general  excuse.  Measure 
the  time  actually  lost  from  explanations  given  piecemeal 
and  you  will  probably  find  the  aggregate  of  his  mistakes 
many  times  longer. 

The  National  Cash  Register  Company  sends  employes 
on  educational  trips  to  other  industrial  centres,  to  see 
how  things  are  done  and  to  see  if  they  can  be  done  better 
at  the  N.  C.  R.  factory,  furnishes  sales  instructors,  pays 
for  good  suggestions  from  any  employe,  and  always  pays 
well  for  the  work  done.  The  four  principles  stated  at 
the  beginning  of  this  chapter  were  tried  out  in  the  Beth- 


Il6  THE    RULES    OF    THE    GAME 

lehem  Steel  Works  and  paid,  by  Yale  and  Towne  Com- 
pany's plant  and  paid,  and  by  the  Link  Belt  Engineering 
Company  in  Philadelphia  and  paid. 

Establishing  Standards 

What  principles  shall  we  have  to  guide  us  in  the 
analysis.,  of  the  man,  the  conditions,  and  the  system  by 
which  he  performs  any  work,  in  order  that  we  may  estab- 
lish standards  for  each  operation  or  line  of  work?  It  must 
be  recognized  at  the  very  outset  that  there  are  two  dis- 
tinct elements  in  every  problem  of  management: 

First — The  machine;  i.  e.,  the  system  and  the  equip- 
ment, which  make  up  the  physical  part  of  the  or- 
ganization. 

Second — The  man-stuff  with  which  you  have  to  deal. 

Standardizing  the  mere  physical  system  and  equip- 
ment is  comparatively  easy,  but  standardizing  their  use 
is  more  subtle,  delicate,  and  intricate.  The  man-stuff  in 
business  offers  to  the  man  who  manages  entirely  by  rule- 
of-thumb  experience,  a  bewildering  mass  of  conflicting 
differences  because  he  thinks  only  in  differences  and  not 
in  principles. 

Psychology  is  making  great  strides  in  man-study  as 
applied  to  business,  as  the  work  of  such  men  as  James, 
Scott,  Hollingsworth,  Miinsterberg,  Thorndyke,  and 
many  others  shows.  It  is  yet  an  infant  science  In  so  far  as 
specific  application  to  the  problems  of  the  market  and 
office  is  concerned. 

Holding  to  the  belief  that  Luck  governs  the  world, 
and  blinded  by  the  superficial  "differences,"  the  layman 
generally  surrenders  himself  to  the  joint  ministrations  of 
the  Devil  and  Dame  Chance.  Instinctively  he  tries  to 
sweep  back  the  sea  of  facts  with  his  broom  of  personal 
experience  and  ultimately  goes  to  make  up  the  large  per 


THE    RULES    OF    EFFICIENCY 


117 


cent  of  those  who  fail  for  "lack  of  knowledge,"  as  Brad- 
street  phrases  it. 

It  is  a  sign  of  a  big  man  when  he  hires  experts,  and 
only  a  master  knows  how  to  use  them.  This  brings 
us  to  the  principles  which  must  govern  the  hunt  for 
standards. 

Before  we  can  hope  to  know  what  we  find,  we  must 
define  what  we  want. 

The  real  difiiculty  is  to  find  that  fine  line  where  per- 
sonal peculiarities  and  typical  character  separate,  where 
individuality  should  be  blamed  for  shortcomings,  and 
where  the  system  or  the  equipment  should  be  held  ac- 
countable. We  admit  that  experience  is  valuable,  then 
why  not  all  experience,  then  why  not  all  facts? 

No  science  stands  absolutely  alone.  Even  the  mechanic 
knows  mechanics  better  when  he  knows  mathematics  and 
psychology.  As  Professor  Thomson  points  out,  physiology 
discovered  oxygen  (by  Mayow,  1674)  a  century  before  it 
was  chemically  isolated.  Thus,  when  we  consider  the  sub- 
ject of  a  card  index,  at  least  four  sciences  have  something 
to  do  with  it — botany,  physiology,  mathematics,  and  psy- 
chology. 

The  Twelve  Principles  of  Efficiency 

Mr.  Harrington  Emerson,  the  philosopher  of  scientific 
management,  in  a  letter  to  the  writer  in  acknowledg- 
ment of  an  address,  'Ts  There  a  Science  Back  of  the  Art 
of  Advertising?"*  said:  "Of  course  there  is  a  science  back 
of  everything.  The  first  aim  of  efficiency  is  to  bring  all 
the  knowledge  of  the  universe  to  bear  upon  each  detail 
of  operation,  however  minute." 

A  careful  analysis  by  experts  of  thousands  of  failures 
and  successes  and  a  study  of  nature  processes  have  given 

•  Delivered  before  the  Advertising  Club,  Rochester,  N.  Y. 


Il8  THE    RULES     OF    THE    GAME 

US  certain  principles,  as  necessary  to  the  highest  efficiency 
in  life. 

First — Definite,  accurate  thinking, 
Second — Synthesis  and  analysis  of  actual  results 
Third — Uncommon  sense  planning 
Fourth — Loyalty  to  the  purpose  of  the  plan 
Fifth — Education  of  self  and  others;  i.  e.,  hitching  ex- 
pert brains  to  expert  hands 
Sixth — Wise  anticipation  of  the  future  demands  of  life 

and  the  work 
Seventh — A  square  deal  to  yourself  and  others 
Eighth — Standards    of    experience,    scientifically    ob- 
tained and  tested 
Ninth — Scientific  management;  i.  e.,  putting  scientific 

standards  into  effect 
Tenth — Discipline;  i.  e.,  co-operation  rather  than  com- 
petition ;  expert  brains  planning  and  trained  hands 
working  for  a  definite  joint  benefit 
Eleventh — A  reward  for  both  thinker  and  doer  fixed 

by  the  value  of  the  results 
Twelfth — High  ideals  of  service  to  self,  to  the  busi- 
ness, and  to  society. 

Harrington  Emerson,  in  his  wonderful  work,  "The 
Twelve  Principles  of  Efficiency,"  lays  down  principles 
which  are  definitely  applicable  to  life,  as  follows: 

First — Clearly  defined  ideals 

Second — Common  sense 

Third — ^^Competent  counsel 

Fourth — Discipline 

Fifth — The  fair  deal 

Sixth — Reliable,  immediate  and  adequate  records 

Seventh — Despatching 


THE    RULES    OF    EFFICIENCY  119 

Eighth — Standards  and  schedules 

Ninth — Standardized  conditions 

Tenth — Standardized  operations 

Eleventh — Written  standard-practice  instructions 

Twelfth — Efficiency  reward 

All  successful  business  works  through  these  principles 
(by  whatever  names  you  may  know  them),  efficiently  ap- 
plied, to  a  greater  or  less  degree.  Where  the  success  is 
less,  failure  to  apply  at  least  some  of  the  principles  can 
be  found. 

Test  all  your  admittedly  successful  work,  all  your  fail- 
ures, by  these  principles.  The  first  requisite  in  making  a 
scientific  test  is  the  ability  to  look  a  fact  in  the  face  with- 
out blinking  and  to  know  the  fact  when  you  see  it. 

The  Scientific  Application  of  Principles 

What  do  we  mean  by  "scientifically  applied"?  In  an- 
swering this  we  obtain  some  additional  specific  laws: 

First — We  shall  have  to  apply  standards  by  which  to 
work.  When  we  have  done  our  best,  find  out  how 
we  did  it. 

The  sales  manager  gives  his  salesmen  a  quota  worked 
out  on  a  basis  of  averages  of  past  results  and  the  present 
prospects  of  a  territory. 

Under  given  conditions,  how  many  statements  should 
be  written  up  by  one  clerk  in  eight  hours? 

How  many  twenty-line  letters  should  a  copyist  in  a 
typewriting  department  produce  in  eight  hours?  Pay  by 
the  line  and  you  win — if  you  pay  a  bonus  for  beating  the 
standard. 

Second — We  shall  have  to  compare  the  work  actually 
done  with  a  view  to  its  surpassing  the  standard. 


I20  THE    RULES    OF    THE    GAME 

Expert  inspectors  must  be  installed  and  trained  to 
judge  by  a  standard  already  agreed  on.  Play  fair  with 
the  worker  or  you  will  fail. 

Third — We  shall  have  to  reward  with  the  best  pay 

those  who  do  the  best  work. 
Remember  the  failure  must  live  until  you  have  taught 
him  to  be  a  success. 

Fourth — We  shall  need  more  experts  to  teach  mew 
how  to  do  better  than  the  average  worker. 

Under  the  old  organization  the  general  manager  was 
supposed  to  be  the  facient  of  all  wisdom — he  was  supposed 
to  be  a  perfect  judge  of  cost  systems,  sales  methods,  adver- 
tising, accounting,  materials,  markets — everything.  We 
know  now  that  he  must  be  able  to  know  how  to  get  and  use 
expert  knowledge  on  these  things. 

Work  for  the  Thinker  and  the  Doer 

We  shall  require  practical  planners  as  well  as  practical 
doers.  Efficient  thinking  is  just  as  important  as  efficient 
doing,  for  the  former  plans  the  greater  enterprises;  the 
latter  superintends  and  manages  them. 

President  Patterson,  of  the  National  Cash  Register 
Company,  is  a  man  of  tremendous  initiative  and  resource, 
yet  he  has  been  most  conspicuous  in  his  solution  of  sell- 
ing and  advertising  problems.  The  production  end  of  his 
business  has  been  developed  by  others.  He  knew  how  to 
hire  men  who  knew  how  to  make  registers,  and  by  giving 
them  a  zest  for  the  game  through  rewards,  he  and  they 
have  received  more. 

The  late  James  B.  Dill,  of  the  New  Jersey  Supreme 
Court,  found  a  way  to  make  the  Sugar  Trust  possible, 
but  had  nothing  to  do  with  running  it,  William  Nelson 
Cromwell  found  a  way  to  make  feasible  the  Panama  Canal, 


THE    RULES    OF    EFFICIENCY  12 1 

hut  didn't  dig  it;  he  is  credited  with   starting  a  revolu- 
tion, but  didn't  fight  it 

Franklin^s  Personal  Efficiency  Plan 

Once  in  a  while  the  practical  thinker  and  the  practical 
doer  come  together  in  the  person  of  one  man  like  Benja- 
min Franklin.  He  had  a  philosophy  and  a  system  of  work 
so  close  to  the  method  of  modern  scientific  management 
as  to  make  us  realize  that  it  is  not  new  but  just  a  clearer 
restatement  of  old  principles.  A  description  of  his  system 
appears  in  his  "Autobiography." 

Franklin  furnished  an  excellent  example  of  what  a 
man  can  do  by  keeping  books  with  himself  to  find  out 
how  he  was  playing  the  game  and  to  teach  himself  how 
to  develop  efficient  tendencies  of  character  and  how  to 
get  rid  of  wastes  due  to  temperamental  defects. 

You  will  remember  he  found,  by  reading  and  experi- 
ence, that  he  needed  to  cultivate  certain  qualities  in  order 
to  succeed  in  the  things  he  desired.  He  made  a  list  of 
these  qualities — some  thirteen  in  number,  viz. : 

Temperance  Resolution 

Silence  Frugality 

Order  Industry 

Sincerity  Cleanliness 

Justice  Tranquillity 

Moderation  Chastity 
Humility 

Under  each  he  put  a  definition  of  what  he  thought  he 
meant  by  them. 

The  sequence  of  these  qualities  was  not  accidental,  for 
Franklin  had  found  out  that  nothing  happened  without 
cause,  even  though  he  could  not  explain  it.  Temperance 
he  placed  first  because  "it  tends  to  procure  that  coolness 


122  THE    RULES     OF    THE    GAME 

and  clearness  of  head  which  is  so  necessary  where  constant 
vigilance  was  to  be  kept  up."  Silence  came  next  because 
he  wanted  knowledge,  and  he  got  that  more  by  listening 
than  by  talking,  and  so  on  down  the  line. 

Then  he  made  a  little  book,  a  page  of  which  was  given 
to  each  quality  in  the  list  given  above.  Each  page  was 
vertically  ruled  for  the  days  of  the  week — then  a  horizon- 
tal line  for  each  of  the  qualities  on  each  page. 

He  determined  to  give  a  week's  strict  attention  to 
each  of  the  virtues  successively.  He  put  down  a  dot  in 
his  book  for  every  infraction.  Thus,  if  in  the  first  week 
he  could  keep  the  line  for  temperance  clear  of  dots,  he 
would  know  that  he  had  improved  himself  in  that  particular 
quality. 

Then  he  would  give  his  attention  to  temperance  and 
silence  together  the  next  week — a  bit  at  a  time,  but  pro- 
gressing, you  will  notice.  Thus  he  got  through  all  in 
thirteen  weeks  and  repeated  the  process  four  times  a  year 
until  he  had  drilled  himself  into  orderliness  of  mind,  habit, 
and  morals.  He  found,  too,  just  what  he  was  doing — 
progressing  or  going  back.  Then  he  took  another  part 
of  his  discipline  book  and  contrived  a  plan  for  governing 
the  day's  work,  hour  by  hour. 

Working  by  Schedule 

Victor  Hugo  said: 

"He  who  every  morning  plans  the  transactions  of 
the  day  and  follows  out  that  plan  carries  a  thread  that 
will  guide  him  through  the  labyrinth  of  the  most  busy 
life.  The  orderly  arrangement  of  his  time  is  like  a  ray 
of  light  which  darts  itself  through  all  his  occupations. 
But  where  no  plan  is  laid,  where  the  disposal  of  time 
is  surrendered  merely  to  the  chance  of  incidents,  chaos 
will  soon  reign." 

A  careful  analysis  of  the  lives  of  the  great  workers 


THE    RULES    OF    EFFICIENCY 


123 


proves  this  to  be  the  principle  on  which  they  got  the  vast 
mass  of  their  work  done. 

Hugh  Chalmers,  of  the  Chalmers  Motor  Car  Com- 
pany, whom  President  Patterson  of  the  National  Cash 
Register  Company  said  was  worth  $6,000  a  month — and 
was  paid  it — always  has  the  "Ten  Most  Important  Things 
to  do  To-day"  listed  and  on  his  desk  when  he  comes  to 
the  office  in  the  morning. 

For  some  years  I  have  always  had  my  work-desk  top 
covered  with  a  large  sheet  of  plate  glass.  Under  that  is 
a  sheet  of  paper  with  numbers  opposite  certain  subjects 
in  which  I  am  interested,  such  as  "Salesmanship,"  "Ad- 
vertising," "Commercial  Organization,"  "Organization," 
"Selling,"  "Quotas,"  and  over  a  hundred  others.  This 
"Index  to  Personal  Data  Files"  is  shown  below,  arranged 
both  numerically  and  alphabetically. 

My  secretary  uses  a  vertical  file  in  which  are  envelopes 
filed  by  a  library  scheme,  corresponding  to  the  numbers 
opposite  each  subject  of  my  list.  When  I  see  or  write  an 
article,  receive  a  booklet,  write  or  receive  a  letter,  or  hear 
a  speech,  which  I  wish  to  save  for  some  purpose  in  my 
plan,  I  mark  it  with  the  number,  and  it  is  filed  in  the  sub- 
ject envelope,  where  it  is  ready  against  the  time  when  I 
shall  want  it. 

A  little  thinking  every  day  about  each  of  many  sub- 
jects in  the  course  of  a  year,  in  this  way  produces  a  fund  of 
information,  suggestions,  and  ideas  without  a  tax  on 
memory. 

While  I  am  not  naturally  orderly,  this  process  has 
trained  me  to  be  so,  and  I  have  been  able  to  handle  an 
immense  correspondence  and  a  vast  amount  of  original 
composition  with  the  maximum  of  efficiency,  the  worker 
considered. 


124 


THE    RULES    OF    THE    GAME 


Index  to  Data  Files 


INDEX  TO   PERSONAL  DATA  FILES 


Numerical 


I — Copy  Writing 

2 — Sales  Conventions 

3 — Designing  Advertising 

4— 

5 — Retail  Advertising 

6 — Bank  Advertising 

7 — The  Advertising  Manager 

8 — The  Advertising  Agency 

9— 

10 — 

II — Civic  Beautification 
12 — Civic  Morality 
13 — Civic  Business 
14 — Commercial  Education 
(Speech) 

15— 

16— 

17 — Commercial  Club  Speeches 
18— 

ig — Education — Business  Schools 
20 — Education — in  Technical 

Schools 
21 — Education — in  Advertising 
22 — Education — in  Salesmanship 
2:i — Ethics  in  Business 
24 — Postage  Legislation 

25— 

26 — Public  Service  Corporations 

27 — Sales  Ideas 

28 — Education  Anecdotes 

29— Store  Management 

30 — Store  Sale  Schemes 

31— 

32— 

22 — Burroughs  (Monthly  Paper) 
34 — Commission  Form  of  Gov. 

35— 

36 — Assn.  of  Nat'l  Adv.  Mgrs. 

2,7 — Agency  Relations 

38 — Business  Methods^American 


39 — Business  Methods — English 
40 — Business  Methods — German 
41 — Business  Methods — French 
42 — Business  Methods — Japanese 
43 — Business  Methods — Chinese 

44— 

45 — Business  Methods — Speeches 
46 — Business  Methods — Anec- 
dotes 

47— 

48 — Scientific   Business   Manage- 
ment 

49— 

50 — Human  Nature 
51 — Pictorial  Illustrations 
52— Adcraft  Club 
53 — Law  Progress 
54 — Employing   People   and    De- 
partment Organization 
55 — Church  Advertising 
56 — Propaganda  Committee 

57— 

58 — Office  Systems 
59 — Printing 

60— 

61 — Charitable  Programs — 

Special  Editions 
62 — Associated  Ad  Clubs 
63 — Teaching  the  Art  of  Adver- 
tising 
64 — Teaching  the  Art  of  Selling 

65- 

66 — Credit  Men's  Asso.  Talks 

67 — Science 

68 — Annual  Report — 1912 

69- 

70 — Books  for  a  Business  Man's 

Use 
71 — What    to    do    with    the    70 

Years   (Speech) 


THE    RULES     OF    EFFICIENCY  135 

72 — Odd  Characters  in  Business  100 — Adv.  Report  (1911) 

']Z — • loi — Circulation  and  Rates 

74 — "After     the     Day's     Work"  102 — Research  Committee 

Series  103 — Finance  Commission   (A.  A. 
75 — National  Economic  League  C.  of  A.) 

76 — Assn.  of  Corporation  Schools  104 — Board  of  Commerce 

'/■J — Advertising   Co-operation  105 — Progressive  Party 

78 — Efficiency — Getting  Right  106 — 

Start  107 — 

79 — Efficiency — Rules  of  the  108 — Retail  Efficiency 

Game  109 — Reading  Notice  Material  (E. 
80 — Efficiency — What's  the  Use  S.  L.) 

81 — Efficiency — On   the   Road   to  no — Clippings  About  Speeches 

Damascus  in — Press  Notices  About  E.  S.  L. 

82 — Efficiency — Vision  of  Things  112 — Oddities — Quotable  Things 

Well  Done  1 13 — 

83 — Efficiency — Paper    of    Brass  114 — Vocational  Guidance 

Tacks  1 15 — 

84 — Efficiency — Who  Says  So  ?  1 16 — 

85 — Efficiency — Thinker,  Doer  &  1 1 7 — 

Co.  118 — Speeches — "Savings  Idea  and 
86 — Efficiency — One  Foot   Inside  the  People" 

the  Door  iig — Speeches  —  "Publicity    as    a 
87 — Efficiency — That     Letter     to  Creative  Force  in  Business" 

Hooker  120 — Speeches — "Little  Word" 

88 — Efficiency — At    the    End    of  121 — Speeches  —  "Advertising     to 

the  Rainbow  Man  in  Mirror" 

89 — Efficiency — Ich  Dien  122 — Speeches  —  "Con     Man     in 
90 — Motion  Study  Competition" 

91 — Speeches— "Creative      Sales-  123 — Speeches — "The  Voice  of  the 

manship"  House" 

92 — Speeches— "Sanctification  by  124 — Speeches — "The  New  Gospel 

Secrecy"  of  Efficiency" 

93 — Speeches — "What     Advertis-  125 — Speeches — "Efficiency   in  the 

ing  Needs"  Adv.  Dept." 

94 — Speeches — "Is    There    a  126 — Short  Cuts  in  Advertising 

Science,  etc.?"  127 — Short  Cuts  in  Selling 

95 — Speeches — "New    Ethics    of  128 — 

Advertising"  129 — 

96 — Speeches  —  "New    Dispensa-  130 — Annual  Report  (1913) 

tion  in  Advertising"  131 — Welfare  Work 

97 — 132 — Anecdotes  of  Men 

98 — Organization  Efficiency  133 — Society  of  Arts  and  Crafts 

99— Adv.  Talks  134 — Service 


126 


THE    RULES     OF    THE    GAME 


135 — Personal 

136 — Adv.  Endorsements 

137— 

138 — Economics 

139 — Philosophy  of  Efficiency 

140 — 

141 — Tuesday    Advertising    Meet- 
ings 


142 — Annual  Reports  (1914) 

143— 

144—. 

145 — Standards  and  Bonus 

146 — 

147 — Index  to  Vertical  Files 
148-200 — (Blank) 


Alphabetical 


B 


Adcraf t    Club 52 

Advertising  Agency,  The 8 

Advertising  Co-operation TJ 

Advertising,  Church   55 

Advertising    Dept.,    Efficiency 

in   ( Speech) 125 

Advertising,  Education   in 21 

Advertising  Endorsements  . .  136 
Advertising  Manager,  The...  7 
Advertising  Report    (1911)...  100 

Advertising  Schools 21 

Advertising,  Short  Cuts 126 

Advertising  Talks    99 

Advertising,  Teaching  the  Art  63 
Advertising  to  Man  in  Mirror 

(Speech)    121 

After  the  Day's  Work  Series.     74 

Agency    Relations Zl 

Anecdotes,  Business  Methods    46 

Anecdotes   (Education) 28 

Anecdotes  of  Men 132 

Annual  Report   (1912) 68 

Annual  Report  ( 1913) 130 

Annual  Report   (1914) 142 

Arts  and  Crafts  Society 133 

Associated  Adv.  Clubs 62 

Assn.  of  Corporation  Schools     76 

Assn.  of  Nat'l  Adv.  Mgrs 36 

Associated    Adv.     Clubs,     Fi- 
nance   Commission 103 

At  the   End  of  the  Rainbow 
(Efficiency)    88 


Bank  Advertising 6 

Board  of  Commerce 104 

Bonus  and  Standards 145 

Books   for  a   Business   Man's 

Use   70 

Burroughs  Monthly   (Paper).  33 

Business  Ethics  23 

Business  Methods — American  38 

Business  Methods — English..  39 

Business  Methods — German..  40 

Business  Methods — French...  41 

Business  Methods — Japanese..  42 

Business  Methods — Chinese..  43 

Business  Methods — Speeches.  45 

Business  Methods — Anecdotes  46 

Business   Schools — Education.  19 


Charitable  Programs — Special 

Editions   61 

Church   Advertising 55 

Circulation  and  Rates lOi 

Civic  Beautification 11 

Civic  Business   13 

Civic  Morality 12 

Clippings  About  Speeches no 

Clubs,  Associated  Advertising  62 

Commercial  Club   Speeches...  17 
Commercial    Education 

(Speech)    14 

Commission  Form  of  Govern- 
ment      34 


THE      RULES 

Committees,  Propaganda 56 

Committees,  Research 102 

Con  Man  in  Competition 

(Speech)    122 

Continuation   Schools — 

Copy   Writing i 

Corporation    Schools 76 

Corporations,  Public  Service..  26 
"Creative     Power     of     Pub- 
licity"  (Speech) 119 

"Creative     Salesmanship" 

(Speech)   91 

Credit  Men's  Assn.  Talks.,..  66 

D 

Department      Organization  — 

Employing  People 54 

Designing  Advertising 3 

E 

Economies 138 

Education   Anecdotes 28 

Education — Business  Schools.  19 
Education — In  Advertising...  21 
Education — In  Salesmanship.  22 
Education — In    Technical 

Schools 20 

"Efficiency  in  the  Adv.  Dept." 

(Speech)    125 

Efficiency — "At    the    End    of 

the    Rainbow" 88 

Efficiency — "Getting     Right 

Start"  78 

Efficiency — "Ich  Dien" 89 

Efficiency  of  Organization....  98 
Efficiency — "One   Foot   Inside 

the    Door" 86 

I'fficiency — "On   the   Road   to 

Damascus"    81 

Efficiency  —  "Paper   of   Brass 

Tacks"   83 

Efficiency — "Philosophy"    139 

Efficiency  —  "Rules  of  the 

Game"  ,,,.., 79 


OF      EFFICIENCY 


127 


Efficiency — "That     Letter     to 

Hooker" 87 

Efficiency — "Thinker,  Doer  & 

Co."  85 

Efficiency — "Vision  of  Things 

Well  Done" 82 

Efficiency — "What's  the  Use  ?"  80 

Efficiency — "Who  Says  So?".  84 

Efficiency,  Retail 108 

Employing    People    and    De- 
partment Organization 54 

Endorsements — Advertising. .  136 

Ethics  in  Business 23 


Finance  Commission  A.  A.  C. 
of  A 103 

Financial  Advertising 6 

Foot  Inside  the  Door  (Effi- 
ciency)         86 

Fraudulent  Advertising 23 


Getting  Right  Start  (Effi- 
ciency)         78 

Graft  Advertising  (Programs, 
etc.)  61 

H 
Human  Nature 50 


Ich  Dien  (Efficiency) 89 

Illustrations,  Pictorial 51 

Index  to  Vertical  Files 147 

"Is  There  a  Science  Back  of 
the  Art  of  Advertising?" 
(Speech)   94 


K 


iii'<«Mi»i''»' 


128 


THE    RULES    OF    THE    GAME 


L 

Law  Progress 53 

Legislation,   Postage 24 

Little  Word  (Speech) 120 

M 
Management,   Scientific  Busi- 
ness    48 

Management,  Stores 29 

Motion   Study 90 

N 
Nat.  Assn.  Corporation  Schools   76 

National  Economic  League...  75 
New    Dispensation    in    Adv. 

(Speech)    96 

"New  Ethics  of  Advertising" 

(Speech)    95 

"New    Gospel    of    Efficiency" 

(Speech)   124 

O 

Odd  Characters  in  Business..  72 

Oddities — Quotable  Things...  112 

Office  Efficiency  (see  139 also)  58 

Office  Systems 58 

On    the    Road    to    Damascus 

(Efficiency)    81 

One    Foot    Inside    the    Door 

(Efficiency)    86 

Organization,  Departmental..  54 

Organization  Efficiency 98 

P 

Paper  of   Brass   Tacks    (Effi- 
ciency)      83 

Personal 135 

Philosophy  of    Efficiency 139 

Pictorial    Illustrations 51 

Postage  Legislation 24 

Press  Notices  About  E.  S.  L.  11 1 

Printing   59 

Programs,  Charitable,  Special 

Editions   61 

Progress,  Legal,  .::•;:•. 53 


Progressive  Party 105 

Propaganda  Committee 56 

Public  Service  Corporations.  26 
"Publicity  as  a  Creative  Force 

in  Business"  (Speech)...  119 

Q 

Quotable  Things 112 

R 

Rates,  Circulation loi 

Reading  Notice  Material   (E. 

S.  L.) 109 

Research    Committee 102 

Retail  Advertising 5 

Retail  Efficiency 108 

Rules  of  the  Game  (Efficiency)  79 

S 

Sales  Conventions       2 

Sales  Ideas  (see  30,  also) 27 

Sales  Schools  (see  104,  also)  22 

Salesmanship,  Creative 91 

Salesmanship — Education  in..  22 
Sanctification    by    Secrecy 

(Speech)   92 

Savings  Idea  and  the  People 

(Speech)    118 

Science  ^J 

Scientific    Business    Manage- 
ment (see  78) 48 

Schools,  Corporation 76 

Selling,  Teaching  the  Art 64 

Service   134 

Short  Cuts  in  Advertising. . .  126 

Short  Cuts  in  Selling 127 

Society  of  Arts  and  Crafts..  133 
Speeches — "Adv.    to    Man    in 

Mirror"    121 

Speeches — Business  Methods.  45 

Speeches — Clippings no 

Speeches — Commercial   Club..  17 
Speeches — Commercial     Edu- 
cation    ,,,,.,.,,..  J4 


THE    RULES    OF    EFFICIENCY 


129 


Speeches — "Con  Man  in  Com- 
petition"     122 

Speeches — "Creative  Sales- 
manship"         91 

Speeches — Credit  Men's  Assn.    66 

Speeches — "Efficiency  in  the 
Adv.  Dept." 125 

Speeches  —  "Is  There  a 
Science,   etc.  ?" 94 

Speeches — "Little    Word" 120 

Speeches  —  "New  Dispensa- 
tion in  Advertising,  The"..     96 

Speeches  —  "New  Ethics  of 
Advertising"  95 

Speeches  —  "New  Gospel  of 
Efficiency"  124 

Speeches  —  "Publicity  as  a 
Creative  Force  in  Busi- 
ness"      119 

Speeches — "Sanctification  by 
Secrecy" 92 

Speeches — "Savings  Idea  and 
the  People" 118 

Speeches — "The  Voice  of  the 
House"  123 

Speeches — "What  Advertising 
Needs"   93 

Speeches— "What  to  Do  With 
the  70  Years" 71 

Standards  and  Bonus 145 

Store  Management 29 

Store  Sale  Schemes 30 

Systems,  Office 58 


Talks,   Advertising 99 

Talks,  Credit  Men's  Assn 66 

Teaching  the  Art  of  Advertis- 
ing    63 

Teaching  the  Art  of  Selling..  64 
Technical  Schools,  Education 

in  20 

That  Letter  to  Hooker  (Effi- 
ciency)      87 

Thinker,    Doer   &   Co.    (Effi- 
ciency)      85 

Tuesday  Advertising  Meetings  141 

U 


V 

Vertical  Files  Index 147 

Vision  of  Things  Well  Done 

( Efficiency)    82 

Vocational  Guidance 114 

Voice  of  the  House  (Speech)   123 

W 

Welfare   Work 131 

"What     Advertising     Needs" 

(Speech)    93 

What    to    Do    With    the    70 

Years    (Speech) 71 

What's  the  Use?  (Efficiency)     80 
Who  Says  So?  (Efficiency)..     84 

XYZ 


Preservation  of  Ideas 

Every  man  has  some  good  ideas,  but  they  are  not  at 
hand  when  the  work  is  to  be  done  or  the  opportunity 
comes.  Ideas  come  at  night,  when  they  escape  during 
sleep;  they  come  on  the  train  or  the  car  or  in  the  theater, 
and  fade  into  other  things.  I  have  followed  Emerson's 
advice,  and  for  ten  years  have  carried  a  book  in  which  I 


130  THE    RULES    OF    THE    GAME 

jotted  down  all  sorts  of  things,  original  and  from  others. 
During  the  past  three  years,  I  have  made  this  a  loose- 
leaf  book,  because  I  can  file  the  leaves  in  the  subject  en- 
velopes of  my  data  file.  In  this  book  I  write  on  everything 
or  anything — a  large  per  cent  of  it  never  gets  into  print; 
hardly  any  of  it  ever  gets  into  print  as  originally  written — 
but  I  have  "a  place  in  which  to  record  the  visits  of  Thought." 
This  process  eliminates  waste. 

My  problem  was  to  have  at  hand,  when  needed,  the 
best  things  I  had  thought  or  read  or  experienced  on  any  sub- 
ject which  was  likely  to  become  necessary  in  my  daily 
work.  I  had  to  create  a  machine,  for  my  memory  was  not 
sufficient  for  separating  wheat  from  chaff  during  the  day's 
work,  and  at  the  same  time  retain  all  the  wheat  of  old 
separations. 

I  have  used  this  same  plan  for  a  great  business,  until  I 
saw  its  data  files  the  court  of  appeal  for  facts,  figures,  and 
suggestions. 

Standardization  by  Experts 

A  little  consideration  will  make  plain  how  Franklin's 
method  of  growing  tendencies  was  true  to  several  of  the 
rules  of  the  game  and  to  the  four  laws  of  scientific  man- 
agement. But  any  attempt  to  put  these  laws  into  exe- 
cution in  a  business,  even  of  moderate  size,  would  be 
difficult  and  likely  to  be  a  failure,  because  no  one  man 
knows  enough  about  everything  to  be  a  safe  judge  of  all 
things.  We  would  not  even  know  how  to  test  a  business 
by  the  principles,  because  we  do  not  know  enough  about 
each  one,  but  the  important  law  to  remember  is  that  the 
principles  must  be  applied  even  if  the  present  equipment 
can't  do  it. 

Experts  should  be  employed  to  fix  standards  and  to 
teach  the  workers  how  to  realize  them.    A  man  found  out 


THE    RULES    OF    EFFICIENCY 


131 


that  coal  varied  in  heating  quaUties,  so  he  went  to  a  coal 
expert,  who  gave  him  a  standard  thermal  unit,  and  the 
man  made  a  193/2%  cut  in  an  annual  coal  bill  of  $14,000 
— one  product  of  open-mindedness. 

The  experts  must  be  able  to  settle  principles  and  poli- 
cies; the  workers  will  be  rewarded  for  success  in  carrying 
them  through.  This  calls  for  scientific  organization;  i.  e., 
expert  thinkers  on  the  one  hand  to  plan  the  work;  expert 
doers  on  the  other  to  carry  the  plan  through. 

In  the  work  of  living,  the  individual  must  test  his  own 
work,  just  as  Franklin  did;  he  must  think  for  himself  and 
do  for  himself.  Let  a  man  place  those  principles  alongside 
his  daily  work,  but  let  him  not  flinch  when  he  comes  to 
application. 

The  Letter  Killeth 

Let  him  be  careful,  for  any  rule  is  dangerous  to  a  man 
who  does  not  know  the  spirit  in  which  it  is  formulated. 
The  observance  of  the  letter  of  a  law  generates  cold,  dog- 
matic thinking,  and  makes  mere  automatons  of  men.  For 
that  reason  Cromwell  had  to  overthrow  a  government; 
Luther  had  to  lead  a  reformation;  and  the  Colonies  had  to 
fight  a  revolution.  The  rule  by  which  they  were  governed 
had  fallen  out  of  touch  with  life.  It  had  become  a  cold, 
lifeless,  stony  convention. 

Our  political  upheavals  may  all  be  traced  to  the  same 
inefBciency. 

That,  too,  is  the  reason  why  we  must  get  new  man- 
agers for  our  businesses.  The  old  ones  soon  know  so 
many  things  that  are  no  longer  true.  An  old  bookkeeper 
came  to  me  the  other  day  and  said,  "A  young  man  with 
a  lot  of  fool  notions  about  cost  systems  has  taken  my 
place."    He  had  been  "dead"  for  ten  years. 

The  letter  of  the  old  rules  of  procedure  becomes  out- 


132 


THE    RULES    OF    THE    GAME 


worn,  but  the  spirit  of  the  old  law  remains  the  same. 
Every  rule  of  action  must  be  interpreted  in  the  light  of 
a  new  experience,  and  often  revised  in  statement  to  con- 
form in  letter  and  spirit  with  the  progress  of  larger 
experience. 

A  careful  reading  of  ancient,  medieval,  and  modern 
history — an  analysis  of  the  lives  of  governments,  of  cor- 
porations, of  firms  and  individuals,  and  of  national  and 
individual  life,  has  given  the  searchers  after  truth  some 
universal  principles.  These  constitute  the  new  Gospel  of 
Efficiency. 


CHAPTER    XI 

THE  WORK  OF  EFFICIENCY 

What  Efficiency  Can  Do 

It  has  been  claimed  that  the  expert  application  of  the 
principles  of  efficiency  will  increase  our  national  wealth 
twenty-fold.  An  analysis  of  wastes  in  all  lines  of  human 
effort,  compared  with  the  economies  in  nature,  makes  the 
thoughtful  believe  the  statement. 

The  New  York  Bureau  of  Municipal  Research  found 
millions  being  wasted  because  a  few  of  these  efficiency 
principles  were  not  observed  in  the  buying  of  city  sup- 
pHes  and  in  the  conduct  of  departments. 

The  individual  life-stories  of  over  four  thousand  pau- 
pers, actually  investigated,  proved  the  lack  of  these  prin- 
ciples— a  common  quality  of  their  lives;  the  life  of  every 
successful  man  shows  the  observance  in  greater  or  less  de- 
gree of  all  the  principles.  The  complete  observance  of  all 
of  them  is  the  ideal  for  which  we  must  strive. 

Thinking  men  strive  automatically  to  overcome  waste. 

Advertisers  and  their  managers  are  getting  together 
to  find  out  what  they  are  doing,  just  as  the  credit  man- 
agers got  together  ten  years  ago.  The  Association  of 
National  Advertising  Managers,  composed  of  the  adver- 
tising managers  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  firms  (191 2)  with 
total  annual  advertising  expenditures  of  over  $30,000,000, 
is  one  straw  showing  the  tendency. 

Efficiency  in  Selling 

The  present  problem  in  selling  is  to  make  a  man's  time 
and  energy  more  productive. 

133 


134 


THE    RULES    OF    THE    GAME 


Machinery  has  produced  so  much  that  it  has  become 
a  problem  of  the  salesman  to  keep  up  with  the  machines. 

Distributors  have  increased  75  per  cent  since  1880, 
and  if  this  ratio  continues  in  1976,  every  worker  in 
America  will  have  to  support  a  distributor  to  get  rid  of 
what  he  makes. 

The  schools  for  salesmen  of  the  National  Cash  Regis- 
ter Co.,  Burroughs  Adding  Machine  Co.,  the  Multigraph 
Sales  Co.,  the  Yawman  &  Erbe  Mfg.  Co.,  the  New  York 
Life  and  other  insurance  companies,  and  scores  of  others, 
are  giving  impetus  to  a  scientific  attitude  toward  selling. 
It  is  a  far  step  in  advance  when  such  a  concern  as  the 
Borax  Company  tells  its  salesmen:  "There  are  certain 
laws  and  principles  behind  the  selling  of  goods  just  as 
there  are  behind  any  profession;  you  use  these  principles 
every  day."  Thousands  of  sales-making  experiences  and 
arguments  are  lost  to  the  men  of  an  organization  where 
the  old  idea  of  every-one-for-himself  is  the  guiding 
principle. 

Let  a  selling  force  work: 

I — On    quotas    for    each    territory;    i.  e.,    a    definite 

amount  of  business  assigned  to  each  territory. 
2 — With  definite  instructions  as  to  what  business  will 

be  acceptable  and  the  terms. 
3 — With  a  corps  of  experts  coaching  and  suggesting 

means  and  methods  of  improvement — to  make 

each  call  more  effective. 
4 — With  a  reward  for  exceptional  work  so  that  a  man 

gets  well  paid  for  what  he  does. 

Such  a  sales  force  is  scientifically  organized,  but  even 
then  only  when  it  is  working  against  standards  fixed  by 
some  more  precise  methods  than  the  like  or  dislike  of  a 
sales  manager. 


THE    WORK    OF    EFFICIENCY 


135 


I  know  a  concern  with  600,000  prospects  that  can  sell 
only  5,000  new  prospects  a  year  at  the  end  of  twenty  years. 
Surely  it  has  no  particular  cause  to  flatter  itself  with  the 
idea  that  it  has  solved  the  problem  of  sales  efficiency. 

InefBcIency  in  Advertising 

In  advertising,  standards  are  in  a  bad  way.  When  a 
well-known  advertising  man  proposed  an  Institute  of  Ad- 
vertising Research  he  was  laughed  out  of  court.  But  we 
shall  yet  have  it,  because  advertising  is  becoming  too 
great  a  problem  to  be  solved  by  the  rule-of-thumb 
methods  of  yesterday.  If  asked  to  tell  exactly  what  ad- 
vertising did  for  a  firm  selling  a  nationally  distributed 
article,  very  few  of  the  managers  could  give  a  coherent 
answer.  Asked  what  they  were  buying,  they  were  unable 
to  tell  with  any  but  approximate  accuracy. 

This  condition  cannot  last,  and  advertisers  will  have 
to  get  together  and  find  out  what  they  are  getting  for 
the  money  they  pay.  The  advertising  manager  now 
wastes  too  much  time  buying  at  the  lowest  prices  instead 
of  taking  care  to  test  what  he  buys  and  to  know  what  he 
gets  when  he  buys.  A  publication  purporting  to  dis- 
tribute 200,000  copies  per  month  had  but  34,000  when 
sold  by  the  sheriff;  yet  it  had  some  of  the  best  and  biggest 
advertising  accounts  in  its  field.  In  the  case  of  one  respect- 
able newspaper  in  a  mid-Western  city,  an  advertising  man- 
ager told  me  there  were  nine  different  rates  for  the  same 
advertising  service. 

Advertisers  have  but  a  vague  notion  of  what  consti- 
tutes circulation.  A  gentleman  of  great  legal  ability 
offered  to  wager  me  that  "The  Saturday  Evening  Post 
was  not  read  by  more  than  100,000  business  men";  yet  that 
gentleman  helped  to  determine  an  advertising  appropriation 
for  a  great  corporation. 


130 


THE    RULES    OF    THE    GAME 


Every  day  we  see  advertisers  who  should  be  using  news- 
papers throwing-  money  away  in  magazines,  and  vice  versa. 

The  selection  of  a  publication  because  "I  have  read  it 
for  ten  years  and  everybody  I  know  reads  it"  is  the  almost 
daily  answer  to  the  question,  "What  medium?"  Opinions 
have  ruled  in  advertising  for  fifty  years;  men  who  knew 
little  about  facts  have  dominated  advertising  practice; 
millions  have  been  placed  on  a  purely  personal  opinion 
basis. 

The  real  students  of  the  art  of  advertising  will  admit 
I  am  not  overstating  the  case  a  single  cipher. 

Last  year  an  advertiser  gave  his  account  to  an  agency 
which  drew  up  an  impressive  line  of  advertising  that 
read  well  and  looked  attractive.  Space  was  taken  in- 
eleven  mediums  of  general  circulation.  The  goods  were 
found  to  be  salable  in  cities  only;  sixty-three  per  cent  of 
the  circulation  of  the  mediums  selected  was  in  the  country. 
This  was  pure  waste  through  inefficiency. 

The  time  and  the  energy — all  meaning  money  in  the 
long  run — wasted  in  advertising  and  selling  methods  is 
appalling.  Managers  are  trying  to  find  out  the  con- 
sistently true  tilings  about  the  work.  Thousands  of  dol- 
lars are  literally  thrown  away  every  year  because  there 
has  been  no  room  for  the  practical  thinker  in  advertising 
or  selling;  all  prizes  go  to  the  doer,  who  docs  things,  fills 
space,  spends  the  money,  gets  results  today.  Times  are 
changing. 

In  the  export  field  the  inefficiencies  have  been  enor- 
mous, from  sending  flat  last  shoes  into  Cuba,  sending  tons 
of  Spanish  catalogs  to  Portuguese  Rio  Janeiro,  and  offer- 
ing corn  breakfast  foods  to  the  French,  to  sending  bicycles 
into  the  back  country  of  Colombia. 

Business  in  America  has  been  able  to  stand  it,  but  there 
are  signs  that  it  can't  keep  on  doing  this  sort  of  thing. 


THE    WORK    OF    EFFICIENCY 


137 


Inefficiency  in  Management 

The  rule-of-thumb  manager  has  no  policy  he  can  set 
down  in  black  and  white.  He  is  an  opportunist — catch- 
ing what  he  can  "on  the  fly." 

He  is  uncertain  what  he  shall  do  tomorrow — vaguely 
generalizing  on  the  haphazard  records  of  the  past ;  he 
has  no  confidence  in  anything  but  that  sentimental  un- 
certainty, "the  future  of  the  business."  Thousands  of 
salesmen  bear  witness  to  this,  because  they  have  tried 
scores  of  houses.  Salesmen  have  to  spend  too  much  of 
their  time  "selling  the  house"  something  they  think  is 
good.  The  man  in  the  field  is  as  uncertain  about  his 
future  as  the  manager  is  about  the  morrow. 

The  sales  manager  of  a  big  corporation,  when  a  dis- 
trict manager  did  not  produce  results,  simply  changed 
men,  generally  promoting  men  whose  individual  sales 
records  had  been  good,  but  whose  fitness  for  managerial 
positions  he  determined  by  personal  inclination,  a  good 
deal  as  a  gambler  guesses  a  number.  That  he  failed  to 
develop  efficiencies  was  proven  by  the  fact  that  the  busi- 
ness slumped  nineteen  per  cent  when  all  other  concerns  in 
the  same  general  field  showed  increases. 

Promotions  to  managerships  were  made  from  the 
ranks  because  a  man  could  make  sales.  No  examinations 
were  held  to  find  out  whether  new  managers  knew  how 
to  run  the  business.  The  departments  outside  of  the  sales 
had  nothing  to  say,  although  the  promoted  men  might 
have  been  the  worst  of  the  house.  Result:  twenty-two 
per  cent  yearly  changes  in  the  sales  organization. 

Age  —  record  of  sales  —  length  of  service  —  loyalty, 
should  have  only  a  part  to  do  with  the  promotions  of  men 
to  managerial  positions.  It  is  fitness  for  the  job,  and  that 
is  dependent  on  a  capacity  to  get  out  of  the  job  all  there 
is  in  it. 


138  THE    RULES     OF    THE    GAME 

Too  few  sales  managers  are  on  top  of  the  job,  because 
they  are  not  in  touch  with  the  reaHties  of  the  sales  con- 
ditions inside  and  outside  the  factory.  Often  it  is  more 
important  to  know  the  former  than  the  latter. 

The  manager  who  uses  the  big  stick  instead  of  his 
head  finds  but  little  consolation.  If  it  costs  $100  a  man 
to  get  a  salesman  and  start  him  in  the  field,  how  much 
have  you  lost  in  the  past  ten  years?  If  you  are  working 
men  on  commission,  how  much  have  your  men  lost  through 
lack  of  training? 

Under  the  everyday  try-and-fail  scheme  of  organiza- 
tion standards,  an  army  would  soon  be  a  rabble.  Sales 
forces  of  many  concerns  have  no  organization  sense  of 
esprit  de  corps.  The  sense  of  the  service  lies  in  the  pay 
envelope  only. 

In  the  army  of  Napoleon,  every  private  left  room  for 
a  marshal's  baton  in  his  knapsack,  and  Soult,  Ney,  and 
the  many  who  rose  from  the  ranks  proved  in  the  hard 
school  of  which  Napoleon  was  the  master  that  they  could 
handle  it. 

Hew  to  the  line — keep  men  in  training  for  the  ultimate 
object,  viz.:  making  successes.  The  successful  men  are 
working  out  their  own  salvation ;  let  them  succeed.  Turn 
your  thoughts  to  the  near-successes;  have  your  standards 
of  successes  so  analyzed  that  you  may  be  able  to  show  the 
failures  where  the  trouble  is. 

Managers  are  judged  by  the  men  they  make.  Carnegie 
made  forty  millionaires. 

Inefficiency  in  the  Office 

The  average  office  is  inefficiently  run.  Modem  labor- 
saving  machinery  is  not  used  as  much  as  it  should  be,  be- 
cause it  is  nobody's  business  to  develop  ofifice  efficiencies 
by  the  scientific  study  of  savings  in  time,  work,  and  ma- 


THE    WORK    OF    EFFICIENCY 


139 


terial.  Try  to  sell  copying  machines,  duplicators,  and 
card  and  filing  furniture  to  the  average  business  house, 
and  the  pathetic  ignorance  of  the  average  manager  of  any 
efficient  method  of  testing  requirements  makes  the  un- 
thinking seller  give  credence  to  the  Luck  theory  of  life. 

There  is  hardly  an  office  in  the  country  where  the 
clerical  efficiency  could  not  be  increased  25  per  cent,  or 
even  50  per  cent,  by  the  careful  introduction  of  labor- 
saving  machinery  and  expert  supervision  of  work  done 
under  the  impetus  of  the  rules  of  the  game.  I  do  not 
mean  by  systematizing  alone,  but  by  the  efficient  handling 
of  such  simple  things  as  cards  in  a  drawer,  the  re-arrange- 
ment of  desks,  the  re-arrangement  of  clerks'  positions  rel- 
ative to  each  other's  work,  and  the  re-assignment  of  work 
by  which  men  whose  especial  fitness  was  determined  by 
examination  would  handle  it. 

By  simply  changing  a  card  list  of  customers  from  files 
to  tables,  nearly  half  the  time  of  four  girls  in  an  address- 
ing department  was  saved.  By  doing  away  with  stenog- 
raphers' desks  and  replacing  them  with  special  tables  in 
a  mailing  department,  a  20  per  cent  gain  was  made  in  the 
room.  The  introduction  of  a  bonus  system,  according  to 
rule  3,*  increased  production  44  per  cent  and  pay-roll  9 
per  cent  in  a  typewriting  department.  The  re-arrange- 
ment of  desks  in  one  office  raised  the  time  ef^ciency  in 
handling  bills  nearly  21  per  cent. 

The  teaching  of  ten  girls  by  an  expert,  how  to  handle 
cards  when  addressing  from  them,  increased  quality  effi- 
ciency 29  per  cent;  which  meant  a  saving  in  material, 
equipment,  salaries,  and  room  space,  that  would  foot  up 
considerably  more  in  an  actual  dollar-and-cents  saving. 

President  Eliot's  famous  dictum  ought  to  be  placed 
over  every  manager's  desk; 

•Chapter  Ti,, 


140 


THE    RULES    OF    THE    GAME 

"No  man  should  be  placed  at  work  which  a  ma- 
chine can  do  better." 


In  any  office  employing  seventy-five  clerks  or  ordinary 
workers,  it  should  be  some  man's  duty  to  be  busy  at  noth- 
ing else  but  trying  to  find  some  shorter,  better,  quicker 
way  to  do  the  work ;  teaching  new  employes,  spurring  old 
ones;  calling  on  other  concerns,  looking  into  new  things 
and  methods. 

The  bookkeeper,  rushed  to  death,  overworked  from 
morn  till  night,  has  no  standard  instructions  for  his  clerks, 
for  each  man  works  out  his  own  methods  of  handling  the 
detail.  In  one  department  there  were  four  methods  among 
seven  clerks  of  handling  chain  discounts. 

Under  such  circumstances  each  department  is  a  pot 
into  which  is  flung  higgledy-piggledy  as  much  work  as  it 
can  absorb  by  overtime  and  the  strenuous  oversight  of  a 
bedeviled  manager.  Many  men  are  always  busy  like  a  pig's 
tail,  but  never  do  anything  worth  while.  They  have 
energy,  but  they  do  not  know  how  to  apply  it;  they 
should  be  taught;  for  efficiency  is  what  the  house  is  pay- 
ing for. 

Efficiency  in  the  Individual 

The  man  who  has  nothing  but  brains  can  increase  his 
efficiency  in  the  position  he  knows  best  how  to  fill : 

First — By  observing  the  best  way  to  do  the  work  he 
is  doing,  because  he'll  have  to  know  that,  if  he  is 
ever  to  be  an  efficient  manager  of  men,  and  by  test- 
ing each  way  by  the  standards  given. 

Second — By  understanding  wherein  work  coming 
from  departments  or  desks  to  his,  is  badly  done,  so 
that  he  may  raise  efficiencies  by  having  the  work 
come  to  him  in  the  most  acceptable  form. 

Keep  a  record  of  your  work — just  a  little  book  for  the 


THE    WORK    OF    EFFICIENCY 


141 


pocket  will  do;  a  record  of  these  three  divisions:  note  im- 
provements you  make;  note  the  precise  gains  in  time, 
work,  and  material  accomplished  by  your  changes;  keep 
accurate  data  on  your  efficiencies,  because  you  want  to 
know  them  for  your  own  satisfaction  and  future  guidance. 

Mere  improvements  in  appearance  are  not  so  impor- 
tant as  improvements  that  cut  down  or  cut  out  time, 
work,  or  materials.  Carefulness,  accuracy,  etc.,  are  neces- 
sary, of  course,  and  no  work  can  be  efficient  without  them, 
but  make  no  change  until  you  know  that  it  will  gain  some- 
thing in  time,  energy,  or  materials. 

After  you  have  made  changes  that  have  produced  re- 
sults, then  go  to  the  head  of  your  department  and  lay 
the  data  before  him.  You  have  a  right  to  know  what  he 
thinks.    You'll  be  rewarded. 

If  you  are  not,  then  the  question  is,  have  you  learned 
in  that  job  in  that  house  all  you  can?  If  not,  stay  and 
learn;  go  on  improving.  If  you  have,  find  another  job 
where  you  can  deliver  all  you  have  learned  and  get  a 
chance  to  learn  more.  Remember  one  thing,  you  are  not 
losing  anything  so  long  as  you  have  an  opportunity  to 
learn,  because  you  will  get  paid  when  you  go  elsewhere. 
When  you  are  suppressed,  held  down,  and  compelled  to 
stop  learning,  get  out  and  go  where  you  can  get  a  chance. 

This  process  will  get  you  more  than  the  painfully  pre- 
cise picking  up  of  pins  of  the  popular  story  book,  and 
clean  linen,  and  being  especially  polite,  or  wearing  rubber 
lieels  "because  Cortelyou  did  it." 

Organization  Efficiency 

Every  house  must  have  an  accurate  system  of  man-ap- 
praisal, or  it  is  liound  to  let  good  men  go  because  thev 
want  more  money,  and  keep  poor  men  when  they  are  get- 
ting more  tlian  they  are  worth.     Every  house  operating 


142  THE    RULES     OF    THE    GAME 

on  the  rule-of -thumb  basis  has  a  large  loss  of  efficiency 
through  the  lack  of  proper  basis  of  appraisal  of  service. 

Men  often  get  more  than  they  are  worth  because  they 
will  leave  if  not  paid  more,  and  a  lazy  manager  would 
rather  pay  than  look  for  another  man.  A  proper  system  of 
understudy,  a  proper  system  of  service  promotions,  a 
proper  understanding  of  house  policies,  a  proper  standard 
of  reward  will  go  a  long  way  toward  stopping  that;  for 
when  you  find  you  can't  get  along  without  a  man,  it  is 
a  good  time  to  begin  to  train  his  successor. 

It  is  with  the  high  purpose  of  warring  against  waste 
of  time,  work,  materials,  and  the  man-stuff  of  the  world 
that  educated  managers  are  getting  at,  and  fixing,  the 
rules  of  the  game  in  every  business,  department,  and  job. 


RamsEij  Pn^^f^hpi^i  rnjnc 


MAI 


PART  IV 

On   the   Road   to   Damascus 


CHAPTER    XII 

THE  NEW  GOSPEL  OF  COMMERCIAL 
EFFICIENCY 

Let  there  be  Light. — Genesis  I,  3. 

The  Dawning  of  the  New  Era 

On  the  occasion  of  the  opening  of  the  first  section  of 
his  new  Philadelphia  store,  in  March,  1906,  Mr.  Wana- 
maker  said  to  the  assembled  employes  and  guests:  "To 
be  a  thorough  business  man  or  woman  requires  an  education 
and  a  course  of  at  least  four  years  in  a  school  of  practice, 
to  enable  one  to  earn  a  fair  living," 

Mark  you,  "an  education  and  a  course  of  at  least  four 
years,"  This  man,  speaking  after  forty-five  years  of  con- 
sistent development,  had  made  the  journey  to  Damascus, 
had  seen  the  Light  and  heard  the  Voice. 

The  journey  of  Saul  of  Tarsus  changed  the  history  of 
the  Christian  religion.  That  journey  of  the  young  Wana- 
maker  into  the  strange  country  of  merchandising  was  des- 
tined to  change  the  policies  and  practices  of  the  commercial 
world. 

It  was  on  the  morning  of  the  6th  of  May,  1876,  when 
the  great  Centennial  Exhibition  was  opening  in  Fairmount 
Park,  Philadelphia,  that  the  "Grand  Depot"  opened  with  a 
half-million  dollar  stock  of  men's  and  boy's  clothing  and 
furnishings,  Philadelphia  merchants  smiled  and  carefully 
figured  what  the  stock  would  be  worth  at  a  forced  sale,  for 
in  the  minds  of  the  merchants  "the  idea  could  not,  of  course, 
succeed  because  it  was  too  big,  and  the  people  would  not 
take  to  the  new-fangled  ideas  of  the  young  proprietors." 

145 


146  ON    THE    ROAD    TO    DAMASCUS 

There  were  at  the  very  least  a  hundred  good  reasons, 
from  the  experience  of  the  retailers  of  that  day,  why  the 
"Grand  Depot"  should  have  failed;  but  there  were  two  bet- 
ter ones  in  the  laws  of  nature  why  it  did  succeed.  Every 
Philadelphia  merchant  knew  most  of  the  reasons  why  it 
should  fail,  only  John  Wanamaker  and  his  partner  had  fig- 
ured out  a  few  of  the  reasons  why  it  should  succeed.  They 
saw  strange,  new  possibilities  in  retailing  because  they  had 
become  familiar  with  the  real  laws  underlying  the  course  of 
trade. 

They  had  discovered  how  to  apply  the  only  two  new 
ideas  that  had  been  introduced  into  retailing  in  a  thousand 
years : 

I — One  price  to  everyone 

2 — Money  back  if  not  satisfied 

The  New  Creed 

The  greatest  insult  the  new  enterprise  offered  to  the  old 
kind  of  merchant,  however,  was  the  creed  of  the  new  gospel 
of  merchandising  efficiency  which  had  been  announced  in  the 
local  papers  of  Philadelphia  that  May  morning  and  which 
was  to  mark  the  dawn  of  a  new  era  in  the  retail  business 
policies  of  the  world. 

This  was  the  creed : 

First — The  new  store  would  not  importune  anyone  to 
buy. 

"Cappers"  and  "barkers"  were  a  familiar  sight  on  every 
sidewalk,  before  every  retail  store;  and  all  salesmen  were 
supposed  to  sell  all  they  could  for  as  much  as  they  could 
get  and  were  censured  if  they  allowed  a  customer  to  get  out 
without  making  a  purchase. 

Second — The  prices  of  goods  were  put  down  at  the  be- 
ginning to  the  lowest  point  that  they  could  l^e  sold  for 
and  there  was  no  "underground  way"  to  get  better. 


THE    NEW    GOSPEL    OF    EFFICIENCY 


147 


All  customers  were  on  the  ground  floor  from  the 
first. 
That  was  rank  heresy.  No  prices  were  supposed  to  be 
water  tight.  Goods  were  always  marked  so  as  to  give 
salesmen  a  chance  to  haggle  and  dicker  with  a  customer; 
i.  e.,  to  show  their  "salesmanship."  A  "good  sale"  was  when 
a  customer  got  a  "poor  bargain." 

Third — The  goods  were  genuine,  trustworthy.    Seconds 

were  not  sold  for  anything  but  seconds,  even  if  the 

people  could  not  tell  the  difference. 

"Mawkish  sentimentality,"  "bluff,"  "untrue,"  were  the 

sneers  with  which  that  policy  was  welcomed,  because  caveat 

emptor  was  the  business  rule  of  the  day. 

Fourth — A  sale  could  be  canceled  and  money  got  back 

easily  by  the  return  of  what  failed  to  please. 
That  was  "simply  suicidal"  in  the  eyes  of  the  old  mer- 
chants who  were  dominated  by  the  rule-of-thumb  policy  oi 
the  day.  They  cried :  "the  public  will  swindle  your  eyes 
out,"  for  the  public  had  always  been  considered  the  prey 
of  the  merchant,  to  be  "skinned"  and  "done"  and  then,  as 
now,  we  always  suspect  the  honesty  of  the  man  we  swindle. 
It  is  only  fair  to  say,  however,  that  the  merchants  of  that 
time  looked  on  the  buyer  as  one  who  would  try  to  get  the 
best  of  the  bargain,  which  meant,  pay  less  than  the  article 
was  really  worth,  if  the  seller  would  permit. 

Fifth — New,  fair,  and  most  agreeable  relations  must  be 
established  between  the  purchaser  and  the  seller — the 
poor  or  the  rich,  the  wise  or  the  unwise ;  there  must  be 
no  favoritism. 
The  merchant  and  the  buyer  had  theretofore  always  been 
at  war  with  each  other.    There  was  but  one  point  of  agree- 
ment between  them ;  each  was  trying  to  get  the  better  of  the 
other. 


148  ON    THE    ROAD    TO    DAMASCUS 

The  Apostle  of  the  New  Era 

Wanamaker  turned  the  whole  retail  system  of  the  day 
bottom  side  up,  and  said :  "Hereafter,  not  competition  be- 
tween buyer  and  seller  to  see  who  can  get  the  best  of  the 
other,  but  co-operation  between  the  man  who  wants  some- 
thing and  the  man  who  can  get  it,  for  the  purpose  of  satis- 
fying both,  in  profit  and  goods.  No  business  can  long  en- 
dure where  there  is  no  mutuality  of  profit  between  the  two." 

Did  the  Damascus  of  his  day  welcome  this  new  Paul 
with  open  arms?  It  did  not.  Those  who  are  not  "up"  on 
a  thing  are  generally  down  on  it.  True  to  type,  the  Phila- 
delphia merchants  at  first  welcomed  the  announcement  with 
amused  tolerance.  Then  they  noticed  the  public  going  to 
the  new  store.  Wanamaker's  competitors  met  each  other 
and  talked  indignantly  of  this  upstart  innovation,  and  when 
he  grew  they  even  thought  laws  should  be  invoked  to  prevent 
such  waste,  and  unfair  competition — always  the  first  thing 
an  incompetent,  weak-kneed  merchant  thinks  of,  i.  e.,  getting 
the  general  government  to  guarantee  him  success  in  his 
business. 

They  tried  to  get  the  newspapers  to  refuse  his  advertis- 
ing. They  wanted  to  save  the  dear  public  from  being 
swindled! 

So  the  apostle  of  this  gospel  of  the  new  merchandising 
efficiency  had  to  battle  with  blind  ignorance,  which  is  akin 
to  hate,  with  its  venomous  tongues  and  its  sly  stab  in  the 
financial  back.  The  scars  of  that  war,  he  will  carry  to  his 
grave.  He  has  lived  to  win  the  great  revolution  in  buying 
and  selling,  to  be  recognized  as  the  merchant  prince  of  his 
time,  and  to  be  honored  wherever  commercial  genius  is 
recognized. 

He  was  the  first  modern  retail  advertiser.  In  his  Golden 
Book,*  issued  to  commemorate  the  close  of  his  fiftieth  year 

*  "Golden  Book  of  the  Wanamaker  Stores." 


THE    NEW    GOSPEL    OF    EFFICIENCY 


149 


as  a  merchant,  Mr.  Wanamaker  gives  some  rules  of  adver- 
tising, which  show  how  this  great  merchant  works  true  to 
several  of  the  principles  of  efficiency — for  he  never  tires  of 
seeking  the  Rules  of  the  Game. 

Any  analysis,  even  superficial,  must  lead  one  to  the 
realization  that  his  mastering  quality  is  the  power  of  ob- 
jective thinking.  He  thought  about  his  possible  customer. 
He  found  what  she  wanted,  what  her  needs  were,  and  then 
prepared  to  get  what  she  wanted  and  needed,  and  organized 
to  place  it  in  her  hands  with  the  greatest  economy  of  time, 
work,  and  worry  to  her  and  himself. 

In  this  process,  of  course,  there  were  some  things  ac- 
centuated at  first  which  were  later  subdued,  for  the  mind 
which  analyzed  the  possible  customer  analyzed  business 
efficiency  in  its  parts  of  financing,  purchasing,  distribution. 

As  he  had  felt  the  need  of  educating  his  customers,  and 
as  he  had  found  it  difficult  to  get  what  he  wanted  in  a  store, 
he  determined  to  take  his  store  to  the  people.  He  would 
not  wait  for  them  to  come  to  him. 

Wanamaker  Publicity 

/  He  was  an  advertiser  from  the  beginning.  Of  course 
he  advertised  differently.  Advertising  was  fundamentally 
salesmanship,  and  salesmanship  was  the  process  of  leading 
people  to  want  what  you  wanted  them  to  have. 

But  he  had  a  larger  vision  than  most  of  those  who  used 
printer's  ink  in  those  days.  Advertising  was  still  in  leading 
strings  to  quack  doctors  and  fake  medicines,  so  that  the 
better  merchants  considered  a  card  or  announcement  all 
they  could,  with  dignity,  permit  to  appear.  Others,  careless 
of  commercial  conventions  and  honesty  and  honor,  too,  used 
the  newspaper  more  freely,  but  advertising  gained  little  in 
dignity  or  power  of  appeal  through  their  patronage. 

Let  the  Golden  Book  tell  Wanamaker's  own  story: 


ISO 


ON    THE    ROAD    TO    DAMASCUS 

"To  speak  truly  of  the  store  and  its  merchandise,  is 
the  simple  rule  of  Wanamaker  publicity.  All  Wana- 
maker  advertising  writers  keep  this  precept  before 
their  eyes  until  they  learn  to  keep  it  in  their  hearts. 

"The  rule,  of  course,  has  many  corollaries.  But  in 
itself  it  is  fundamental  and  all-embracing. 

"Wanamaker  publicity  gathers  its  inspiration  from 
Wanamaker  merchandise;  Wanamaker  merchandise  re- 
flects the  personality  of  the  Wanamaker  Store;  the 
Wanamaker  Store's  personality  is  but  the  composite 
of  the  individuality  of  the  founder  of  the  Wanamaker 
business  and  of  those  he  has  gathered  about  him. 

"Wanamaker  publicity  is,  therefore,  Wanamaker 
publicity — original,  distinctive,  changing  daily  in  form 
and  matter  as  the  New  Kind  of  Store  changes  its  mer- 
chandise and  its  environment,  but  remaining  ever  true 
and  always  the  same  at  the  heart.  It  is  a  pioneering 
publicity,  cutting  its  way  out  of  the  solid  rock  of  expe- 
rience, leaving  behind  a  model  that  is  used  the  world 
over,  but  reproductions  of  which,  like  all  imitations,  are 
not  and  never  can  be  original. 

"See  how  early  the  Wanamaker  advertising  pen 
touches  the  merchandise.  When  orders  are  passed 
for  merchandise,  says  the  Wanamaker  guide-book,  the 
buyer  of  the  merchandise  shall  be  interviewed,  and  all 
the  facts,  news,  stories,  and  reasons  for  the  purchase 
be  written  down  and  scheduled. 

"Then  follows  this  injunction:  'Advertisements 
shall  be  written  only  on  personal  inspection  of  the  mer- 
chandise.' 

"  'Tell  the  whole  truth  about  the  merchandise 
though  it  hurts,'  is  another  rendering  of  the  funda- 
mental Wanamaker  rule,  to  speak  truly  of  the  store  and 
its  merchandise. 

"Conceal  nothing  the  customer  has  a  right  to  know, 
is  still  another  variation. 

"If  cotton  is  mixed  with  wool  a  Wanamaker  adver- 
tisement must  say  so. 

"If  the  article  is  a  second  it  must  be  so  presented. 

"'Be  fair  to  the  merchandise'  is  the  one  command; 
understate,  but  never  exaggerate;  don't  impose  on  poor 
dumb  merchandise  responsibilities  that  it  cannot  bear." 


THE    NEW    GOSPEL    OF    EFFICIENCY  151 

The  Spirit  of  Wanamaker  Publicity 

In  another  part  the  Wanamaker  historian  says  : 

"But  it  is  not  the  form  of  advertising  nor  even  its  pur- 
pose, that  places  a  store  in  wireless  contact  with  the 
public  and  makes  of  this  advertising  a  great  dynamo  of 
service  for  mutual  benefit.  It  is  the  spirit  of  the  ad- 
vertiser, reflecting  truly  the  spirit  of  the  store  and  its 
service,  that  supplies  the  current  of  trade  and  good  will. 

"And  the  spirit  of  a  thing  is  its  very  own — it  need 
not  be  copyrighted;  it  cannot  be  copied  nor  stolen. 

"Form  is  only  outward  appearance.  It  follows  the 
customs  of  a  day.    It  is  a  matter  merely  of  fashion. 

"Wanamaker  advertising  passed  through  the  va- 
rious forms  of  type  and  display.  It  followed  the  news- 
papers in  some  instances;  in  others,  it  led.  But  always 
it  aimed  to  use  that  form  which  would  please  the  public. 

"In  its  spirit,  Wanamaker  advertising  has  always 
been  a  leader.  It  does  not  blindly  follow  the  Spirit  of 
the  Times,  but  interprets  it  wisely,  and  in  a  sense  for- 
mulates it. 

"Now  what  is  the  spirit  of  Wanamaker  advertising? 
Analyze  it  and  you  find — 

I — A  real  first  aid  to  the  buying  public 

2 — Absolute    accuracy    and    frankness    of    statement 

3 — Readable  type  and  original  display 

4 — Clear  expression 

5 — Freshness,  newsiness,  and  distinct  style 

6 — Thorough  investigation  of  merchandise 

7 — Systematic  and  logical  presentation 

8 — Always  an  optimistic  outlook 

9 — Justice  to  the  manufacturer,  the  customer,  the 

competitor,  and  the  merchandise 
10 — The  store's  personality 

"Mix  these  ingredients  on  your  palette,  and  you 
can  paint  the  picture  yourself,  or  you  can  see  it  in  the 
daily  Wanamaker  advertising  pages." 

Philosophy  of  Wanamaker  Publicity 

Mark  you  this,  you  who  are  all  so  quick  to  make  light  of 
the  entrance  of  science  into  the  art  of  advertising,  what 
Wanamaker  has  to  say  of  the  trend  of  the  times : 


152 


ON    THE    ROAD    TO    DAMASCUS 

"Today  in  its  entry  upon  its  present  era  of  science 
in  advertising — the  highest  of  all — Wanamaker  pub- 
licity is  still  leading  the  way.  Here  again  the  change 
is  internal.  It  is  not  one  of  form.  It  cannot  be  seen. 
It  can  show  only  in  the  result — in  the  benefits  that  must 
come  to  all  in  placing  advertising,  like  anything  else,  on 
the  basis  of  science. 

"The  more  goods  a  store  sells,  the  more  economic- 
ally those  goods  can  be  made  and  distributed.  This  is 
axiomatic. 

"Presuming  the  merchant  takes  only  his  just  profit, 
the  greater  return  for  their  money  will  the  people  get. 

"Wanamaker  publicity  is  only  part  of  the  Wanamaker 
distribution  of  merchandise — from  the  producer  to  the 
consumer.  Distribution  of  merchandise  is  a  vital  part  of 
life  in  this  stage  of  civilization.  The  less  this  distribution 
costs,  the  more  money  is  left  in  the  hands  of  the  man  who 
makes  a  thing  and  the  man  who  buys  it  because  he  wants  it. 

"Therefore,  as  advertising  is  the  first  aid  in  dis- 
tribution, the  more  scientific  it  is  made,  the  less  will 
distribution  cost — and  the  greater  the  benefit  that  will^^ 
accrue  to  humanity. 

"Everybody  has  a  vital  interest  in  advertising.  It 
is  a  duty,  as  useful  members  of  society,  to  read  and  to 
respond  to  advertising — sharing  in  the  general  economy 
that  follows. 

"Merchandising  is  mutuality. 

"Scientific  merchandising  must  include  scientific 
advertising. 

"After  each  Wanamaker  advertisement  is  in  proof 
form,  but  before  it  is  published,  it  is  verified  as  to  accu- 
racy and  sincerity  of  statement. 

"It  is  scanned  as  to  its  service  and  helpfulness  to 
the  public. 

"It  is  tested  as  to  its  economy  of  space  and  money 
— for  economy  in  every  branch  of  merchandising  always 
leads  to  lower  prices. 

"It  is  judged  as  to  its  manners  and  language,  which 
assures  good  English  and  French,  and  prevents  slipping 
through  of  inartistic  or  distasteful  display,  type,  pic- 
tures, or  expressions. 

"Wanamaker  publicity  takes  the  attitude  of  the 
customer.      Its   sole   purpose   is   to  be   helpful   to   the 


THE    NEW    GOSPEL    OF    EFFICIENCY  153 

store's  customers  in  the  selection  of  merchandise  that 
will  satisfy.  It  aims  to  sell  goods,  but  not  to  push 
goods  on  an  unwilling  public." 

There  we  have  at  once  a  philosophy  of  advertising 
efficiency  which  any  advertiser — retail,  manufacturing  or 
national — might  well  make  his  own. 

Wanamaker's  Scientific  Open-Mindedness 

Wanamaker  started  right,  for  he  said :  "Now  we  know 
that  publicity  has  a  larger  and  finer  field  than  this — that  it 
must  be  informative,  educative,  productive — in  a  word, 
"scientific."  In  another  place :  "Scientific  merchandising 
must  include  scientific  advertising."  "What!"  shrieks  the 
"born"  salesman  and  advertiser,  "scientific  merchandising 
and  advertising!    What  awful  rot!" 

But  do  we  not  have  the  intuitive,  precedent-ridden,  con- 
ventional advertisers  up  against  one  of  their  pet  proofs  of 
superiority  ? 

Let  them  not  forget  Mr.  Wanamaker  has  just  as  many 
medals  for  success  as  any  of  his  critics.  Again,  if  the  test  of 
"doing"  be  the  standard  by  which  we  shall  judge  of  the 
rightness  of  a  claim,  then  let  us  accept  "science"  of  mer- 
chandising and  advertising,  when  this  captain  of  men  who 
do  things  appraises  it  so. 

Thus  he  started  right — our  first  principle  of  efficiency — 
by  thinking  on  the  real  facts  and  truths  of  the  plan.  Then 
he  elaborated  the  rules  of  the  game  as  it  was  going  to  be 
played.  See  his  creed  as  already  given.  He  found  the  use, 
the  value  of  each  rule  he  practiced.  He  was  scientific  in 
attitude  and  method,  with  an  open  mind  toward  new  ideas 
— in  short,  he  was  educated. 

How  did  he  know  what  to  do?  He  saw  in  each  fact  a 
pillar  for  a  possible  structure  where  a  fool  would  have 
seen  in  it  only  something  to  lean  on. 


154 


ON     THE    ROAD    TO    DAMASCUS 


The  generations,  environments,  and  experiences  made 
him  curious  as  to  means  and  methods.  He  mastered  the  past 
and  in  doing  so  learned  that  it  pointed  to  the  future  as  the 
way  out. 

Scientific  open-mindedness  as  a  matter  of  principle  was 
the  real  secret  of  his  power. 

The  Old  Order 

To  understand  what  open-mindedness  in  the  retail  busi- 
ness meant  in  1861,  one  has  but  to  read  a  business  history 
of  the  times.  "Business  itself  was  considered  but  half  re- 
spectable; most  merchants  when  they  got  money  enough, 
called  themselves  bankers ;  there  were  no  sewing  machines ; 
peddlers  prowled  the  outskirts  of  the  cities  and  sold  in  the 
small  towns;  there  was  no  ready-made  clothing  for  boys, 
and  father's  was  a  sight ;  candies  were  made  by  hand  and 
were  generally  home-made ;  bakers  filed  notches  in  a  stick  to 
tally  the  sold  loaves ;  retailers  made  no  free  delivery  of  pur- 
chases." Take  down  your  histories  and  read,  or,  better, 
turn  to  Wanamaker's  own  book — it  is  all  there.  What 
would  most  men  of  today  have  done  in  '65,  when  this  new 
retailing  genius  burst  on  Quaker  Philadelphia,  just  getting 
over  a  war  ?  What  would  they  have  done  in  '76,  when  she 
was  showing  in  her  great  Centennial  what  the  old  methods 
had  done?  Probably  the  men  of  today  would  have  done 
what  most  men  of  that  day  did — joined  the  anvil  chorus; 
what,  in  fact,  do  they  do  today,  when  you  talk  of  training 
employes  and  raising  efficiency  by  scientific  management? 

John  Wanamaker  had  seen  the  Light.  He  saw  salesmen 
wasting  from  ten  minutes  to  an  hour  chaffering  and  dicker- 
ing with  customers  over  prices.  He  asked  himself  what  was 
the  real  money  result  of  that  lost  time.  Franklin  had  said 
only  three  generations  before,  "Time  is  money."  Napoleon 
had  said  in  his  day,  "You  may  ask  anything  of  me  but 


THE     NEW    GOSPEL    OF    EFFICIENCY 


155 


time."  If  time  was  so  valuable,  did  it  pay  to  use  so  much 
of  it  in  getting  the  extra  pennies  for  a  yard  ? 

He  saw  people  going  into  stores  prepared  to  purchase 
— after  walking  all  over  town.  What  was  the  use  of  having 
a  fight  with  a  customer  when  your  real  purpose  in  being  in 
business  was  to  sell  her  something?  He  saw  customers 
swindled  and  cajoled  and  brow-beaten,  and  he  knew  they 
never  went  back  to  that  store  again.  What  was  the  use  to 
spend  money  to  get  customers  when  you  drove  them  away 
as  soon  as  you  got  them?  In  those  days  women  rarely 
shopped,  in  the  modern  sense,  because  buying  was  a  dis- 
agreeable experience. 

The  whole  system  was  wrong,  he  told  himself.  It  was 
absurd  and  wasteful,  but  all  mercantile  experience  was 
against  him. 

All  the  rule-of-thumb  merchants  of  his  day  said  the  new 
way  couldn't  succeed,  and  when  they  saw  he  was  going  to 
try  it,  their  prophecies  turned  to  covert  threats  and  active 
resistance. 

He  couldn't  make  the  business  practice  of  the  day  square 
with  his  common-sense  knowledge  of  mere  human  nature 
and  his  conception  of  the  efficient  use  of  time  and  skill  and 
brains.  All  this  while  he  was  assimilating  the  thoughts  of 
those  who  wrote  books,  and  he  was  studying  people,  asking 
questions  everywhere  of  everyone,  like  a  Chinese  am- 
bassador. 

He  had  started  out  in  life  to  become,  as  a  matter  of 
definite  aim,  a  great  merchant.  He  recognized  the  necessity 
of  doing  some  thinking  because  he  had  brains  and  no  money. 
He  knew  that  mind  can  create  money  and  then  money  and 
mind  can  do  the  world's  wonders.    As  he  once  said  : 

"Back  of  the  light  there  is  a  dynamo.  Back  of  the 
dynamo  there  is  mind.     Back  of  mind  there  is  law." 

Wanamaker  never  rested  in  his  analysis  of  the  prob- 


156  ON    THE    ROAD    TO    DAMASCUS 

lem,  "How  may  I  create  a  great  and  profitable  business?" 
until  he  had  found  the  Law ;  most  men  stop  at  the  dynamo. 
"Why  was  business  then  so  slip-shod,  done  on  a  hit-or- 
miss  style  ?"  he  had  asked.  He  soon  found  that  father's  way 
had  been  sanctified  by  custom.  Business  was  in  bondage  to 
tradition. 

If  business  had  been  done  so  for  fifty  years  it  was  time 
for  a  change.  "Trade  had  become  a  different  thing  in  the 
era  of  steam  roads  and  telegraphs.  For  one  thing,  prices 
were  coming  down,  and  that  called  for  different  treatment 
of  business.  Folks  didn't  have  to  buy  of  one  merchant  or 
go  without." 

Competition  was  making  itself  felt  and  that  called  for 
bard  thinking  on  the  great  problem  of  getting  and  keeping 
customers.     But  grandfather  still  had  a  big  influence. 

The  Journey  to  Damascus 

It  was  time  for  the  journey  to  Damascus. 

Wanamaker,  in  an  earlier  day,  like  Saul  of  Tarsus, 
started  out  to  go  down  to  Damascus  to  bring  back  a  few 
captives  from  among  those  who  would  trade  with  him.  On 
that  "road  to  Damascus"  he,  too,  had  an  experience.  His 
eyes  were  opened  to  the  great  universal  laws  of  trade,  and 
he  came  back  from  that  journey  the  Apostle  of  Righteous 
Business,  a  square  deal  to  all — business  competitors,  custom- 
ers and  society — as  a  matter  of  course  and  not  of  necessity 
or  policy.  On  that  basic  faith,  Wanamaker  has  sold  more 
than  five  hundred  millions  of  dollars  worth  of  goods  to  the 
people  of  America. 

He  "had  seen  the  light,"  got  a  vision  of  the  new 
service  idea  in  business,  caught  the  enthusiasm  of  the  Spirit 
of  Commerce. 

What  is  this  "light"  ?  Let  us  call  it  the  knowledge  of 
good  and  evil,  truth  and  lies,  faith  and  scepticism,  science 


THE    NEW    GOSPEL    OF    EFFICIENCY 


157 


and  rule-of-thumb ;  and  the  man  who  has  this  knowledge  is 
educated  to  look  beyond.  He  has  seen  the  light  of  Truth 
and  heard  the  voice  of  the  Spirit  calling  him  to  the  service 
of  the  community.  As  another  well  said :  "The  educated 
man  is  he  who  follows  the  standards  of  truth  and  beauty, 
who  employs  his  learning  and  observation,  his  reason,  his 
expression  for  purpose  of  production,  that  is,  to  add  some- 
thing of  his  own  to  the  stock  of  the  world's  ideas." 

In  that  definition  are  two  words  which  I  have  emphasized 
that  they  may  not  escape  the  inattentive  reader,  i.  e.,  "stan- 
dards" and  "production." 

Why  is  education  necessary?  Because  it  produces  that 
quality  of  mind  without  which  progress  becomes  impossible 
or  painful — open-mindedness  to  new  ideas. 

The  educated  man  has  the  power  to  arrange  his  ideas,  to 
see  their  relationship  to  other  ideas  of  the  same  or  a  differ- 
ent class.  When  the  educated  mind  reads  of  the  standardiz- 
ing of  brick-laying  practice,  it  sees  the  possibility  in  handling 
the  collating  of  signatures  in  a  bindery,  and  the  handling  of 
letters,  envelopes,  and  enclosures  in  a  mailing  department. 

The  man  who  studies  military  strategy  soon  sees  the 
possibilities  of  the  application  of  its  principles  to  business. 
As  General  Grant  once  remarked,  while  going  through 
Wanamaker's,  "It  takes  as  much  generalship  to  organize 
a  business  like  this  as  to  organize  an  army." 


CHAPTER    XIII 

THE     GIFT     OF     PERCEPTION 

Closed-mindedness  is  the  besetting  sin  and  the  insignia 
of  the  little  man,  just  as  open-mindedness  is  the  universal, 
distinguishing  quality  of  the  big  man. 

Some  Who  Savr 

Secretary  Meyer  of  the  Navy  introduced  scientific  man- 
agement into  the  navy  yards,  because  Secretary  Meyer  could 
not  see  why  it  should  cost  so  much  more  to  run  a  govern- 
ment than  a  private  business.  To  the  navy  yard  foreman, 
however,  "government  work  is  different."  Of  course  such 
thinking  makes  it  different  in  the  way  in  which  it  is 
actually  done,  but  that  does  not  alter  the  fact  that  Secretary 
Meyer  was  right. 

When  Lincoln  wanted  the  Federal  troops  quickly  moved 
to  Washington,  he  sent  for  Colonel  Thomas  A.  Scott,  an 
official  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad.  Scott  moved  the 
troops  because  he  knew  how  to  handle  a  lot  of  trains  quickly. 
Lincoln  couldn't  see  any  difference  in  moving  thirty  thou- 
sand soldiers  and  thirty  thousand  of  any  other  sort  of 
people.  He  got  the  man  who  knew  how  to  handle  trains. 
He  afterwards  made  Scott  Assistant  Secretary  of  War  in 
charge  of  troop-moving.  Lincoln  had  read  and  talked  and 
listened  until  his  mind  was  sensitive  to  impressions  from 
every  source.     He  was  educated,  his  mind  was  open. 

The  world  of  men  and  things  and  ideas,  of  work  and 
play,  of  sorrow  and  laughter,  was  Lincoln's  home.  He  had 
learned  to  think  in  the  silences  of  his  Kentucky  and  Indiana 
and  Illinois  cabin  homes,  of  the  forest  and  the  fields.    He  had 

158 


THE    GIFT    OF    PERCEPTION 


159 


learned  to  think  while  he  mastered  the  few  books  he  could 
borrow.  He  had  learned  to  think  when  he  found  himself 
alone  in  the  crowd.  He  made  many  a  mistake  of  taste  and 
thought  and  act,  but  he  was  right  in  heart,  head,  and  soul. 
He  rarely  missed  the  point  of  a  thought,  as  his  inimitable 
stories  so  aptly  illustrate.  His  power  to  do  things  was 
beyond  question  because  he  was  always  in  command  of  all 
his  forces.  He  saw  in  and  beyond  resemblances  because  he 
knew  the  thing  and  saw  beyond  it  to  its  end. 

This  is  the  common  characteristic  of  such  men.  Es- 
sentially all  men  of  power  are  alike. 

Take  down  the  biographies  of  fifty  great  men  in  as 
many  different  walks,  occupations,  spheres  of  life,  of  even 
different  times — they  are  alike  in  their  open-mindedness. 

They  concentrate.  Yes,  but  how  ?  They  concentrate  the 
power  of  a  wide  range  of  thought,  experience,  reading,  re- 
search, on  the  detail  problems  of  their  work. 

Sight  Limitations 

On  the  other  hand,  the  rule-of-thumb  man  considers  only 
the  past  and  present  of  his  experience.  Beyond  that  ex- 
perience he  is  a  rudderless  ship  adrift  in  cross  currents.  In 
business  he  is  the  near-success,  in  private  life  the  victim  of 
the  gold-brick  artist,  and  he  contributes  nearly  $100,000,000 
a  year  to  the  fake  investment  sharks.*  He  is  the  man  w^ho 
calls  advertising  a  "game,"  and  means  it ;  he  believes  a  cost 
system  is  red  tape ;  looks  on  technical  education  as  a  waste 
of  time;  thinks  agricultural  schools  are  "schemes  to  give 
easy  money  to  lazy  highbrows." 

I  have  had  occasion  to  say  what  has  been  often  said  by 
others,  that  a  man  can  see  in  a  thing  only  what  he  knows 
about  it,  and  this  particularly  applies  to  the  problem  of  the 
education  of  ourselves  and  our  men. 


Report  of  the  Post  Office  Inspectors. 


l6o  ON    THE    ROAD    TO    DAMASCUS 

Let  me  take  this  pen  with  which  I  write  and  ask  you  to 
tell  me  all  that  you  can  see  and  all  that  it  suggests  to  you. 
There  are  but  few  who  could  get  much  further  than  the 
metal,  the  size  and  shape,  and  a  few  fragmentary  facts  about 
the  kind  of  steel  used  in  the  making  of  pens.  Yet  the  ex- 
pert pen  salesman  will  give  me  a  hundred  points,  which  I 
could  appreciate  as  important  if  he  knew  me  and  my  work 
and  the  pen. 

The  Power  to  See 

The  classic  example  of  this  capacity  to  see  many  things 
in  little,  because  much  is  known,  is  Professor  Huxley's 
famous  lecture,  "On  a  Piece  of  Chalk,"  given  before  the 
workingmen  of  Norwich,  England,  in  1868.  It  is  now  a 
classic.  The  few  clerks  who  analyze  their  daily  work  to 
get  at  its  full  significance  are  those  who  go  forward.  It  is 
the  uneducated  advertising  men  and  salesmen  who  glide  over 
the  outer,  superficial  resemblances,  and  never  go  deep  for 
the  vitals,  who  fail,  who  are  always  just  out  of  or  in  a  job. 
The  educated  man  cannot  do  things  that  way.  He  has  seen 
what  a  Huxley  can  do  with  a  bit  of  chalk ;  what  Robert  G. 
Ingersoll  could  do  with  a  petal  of  a  rose,  and  has  read  what 
Lamb  could  do  with  a  slice  of  roast  pork.  He  learns;  he  is 
educated ;  he  knows  that  nothing  is  unimportant ;  that  he 
must  know  everything  about  something  and  something  about 
everything,  as  one  epigrammatist  has  put  it. 

A  salesman  in  the  Berlin  office  of  the  National  Cash 
Register  Company  was  asked  why  it  was  that  he  sold  more 
registers  than  any  other  man  in  the  German  organization. 
It  was  rather  a  curt  response :  "Because  no  man  can  ask  me 
a  question  about  the  cash  register  or  its  application  that  I 
can't  answer." 

The  man  of  power,  they  say,  makes  opportunities.  He 
doesn't  do  anything-  of  the  kind.     He  sees  opportunities 


THE    GIFT     OF    PERCEPTION  l6i 

which  the  uneducated  man's  untrained  eye  does  not  see,  and 
can't  see,  because  the  latter  does  not  recognize  that  there  are 
any  differences  in  any  conditions,  and  does  not  see  them  as 
opportunities. 

Just  outside  the  fence  surrounding  the  grounds  of 
Luther  Burbank's  home  at  Santa  Rosa,  between  the  curbing 
and  the  sidewalk  stands  a  row  of  trees.  They  are  noticeably 
tall,  wide-spreading,  inviting  trees  even  for  that  country 
where  magnificent  verdure  is  the  rule.  They  are  a  Bur- 
bank  product  of  education  from  a  series  of  patient  experi- 
ments with  the  English  walnut  and  the  California  black 
walnut.  In  his  "Royal"  black  walnut,  Burbank  has  pro- 
duced in  seventeen  years  what  the  ordinary  walnut  requires 
thirty-five  years  to  produce.  Burbank  experiments  and 
records  the  myriad  facts;  the  results  of  all  he  does — the 
failures  as  well  as  the  successes,  mind  you.  He,  like  all 
other  great  educators,  knows  that  nothing  happens.  He 
often  grows  fifty  thousand  seedlings  of  a  variety  just  to  get 
the  perfect  one.  Even  then  he  sometimes  fails  to  get  the 
result  he  has  anticipated.  But  that  failure  is  the  starting 
point  for  a  new  series  of  experiments. 

It  took  six  hundred  and  six  experiments  before  Ehrlich 
got  the  result  which  may  rid  the  world  of  the  terrors  of  a 
loathsome  disease,  and  even  now  that  remedy  is  but  ready 
for  further  experimentation  at  the  hands  of  the  world's 
practitioners. 

We  shall  have  to  develop  Burbanks  in  business,  to  get  at 
values  and  costs,  to  lessen  the  time  and  labor  of  operations, 
to  increase  the  efficiency  of  advertising  and  selling  energies. 
We  shall  have  to  make  men  who,  at  twenty-five,  can  do  the 
work  of  men  at  forty.  As  Burbank  grows  fifty  thousand 
seedlings  to  get  the  perfect  one,  Society  has  been  growing 
fifty  million  Americans  to  get  one  Lincoln,  but  Society  has 
to  keep  the  bad  with  the  good. 


1 62  ON    THE    ROAD    TO    DAMASCUS 

It  is  important  to  produce  more  good  man-stuff.  We 
must  train  our  boys  to  see  the  big  things  by  knowing  the 
value  of  many  little  things. 

The  Hidden  Possibilities 

If  the  disheartened  clerk  does  not  "see  any  future  in  his 
task,"  it  isn't  in  his  task,  the  future  of  any  task  is  in  the 
worker.  Any  task  is  big  with  hidden  possibilities.  Bur- 
roughs discovered  an  adding  machine  and  money  and  fame 
in  the  fact  that  adding  columns  of  figures  is  a  mechanical 
operation.  The  big-salaried  salesman  sees  big  possibilities 
in  a  territory  because  he  knows  the  wants  of  the  small  mer- 
chants better  than  they  do  themselves,  and  he  fits  his  wants 
to  theirs,  and  makes  the  two  satisfy  each  other,  and  thus 
performs  a  double  service.  The  clerk  has  found  out  how  to 
sell  Mrs.  Murphy  because  he  has  become  acquainted  with 
Mrs.  Murphy's  problems.  He  has  studied  and  come  to  know 
selling  in  all  its  qualities  and  ramifications. 

We  are  told  that  ninety  per  cent  of  the  population  of  the 
country  have  to  do  without  things  that  they  ought  to  have, 
and  could  have,  if  they  would  only  put  the  premium  on  hard 
thinking  and  study,  instead  of  putting  so  much  accent  on  the 
number  of  hours  at  work — the  time-clock  instead  of  the  sat- 
isfaction. There  is  more  than  enough  of  everything  wasted 
to  satisfy  every  human  being  in  this  country.  How  are  we 
going  to  get  it?  By  starting  the  wasters  to  thinking  right 
about  conservation  of  time,  tliought,  and  energies,  and  then 
by  constant  independent  study  of  the  faihu-es  and  successes 
of  the  world. 

The  great  trouble  with  the  carpenter  is  that  he  doesn't 
see  the  possibilities  in  the  work  he  is  doing;  and  the  trouble 
with  the  farmer  boy  is  that  he  doesn't  see  the  pleasure  and 
profit  in  actually  mastering  the  methods  of  good  farming. 
He  has  his  mind  on  something  beyond  the  farm.    There  isn't 


THE    GIFT    OF    PERCEPTION  163 

anything  beyond  the  farm.  The  great  farmer,  the  man  who 
is  scientifically  cultivating  his  one  hundred  and  sixty,  or  his 
forty,  or  even  his  ten  acres,  is  just  as  big  a  man  as  the 
man  who  fashions  something  in  the  factory,  and  is  probably 
many  times  happier. 

Looking  Ahead 

When  we  get  the  farmer  boys  to  understand,  to  ap- 
preciate, and  to  get  the  vision  of  the  great  future  in  their 
own  work,  there  will  be  fewer  of  them  leaving  the  farm, 
and  more  of  them  making  satisfying  successes  of  their  lives. 

Of  course  the  mere  studying  of  soils,  breeding,  and  bet- 
ter fat-producing  feeding  of  cattle  and  hogs  is  not  farming, 
for  there  are  the  no  less  important  problems  of  farm  com- 
munity life  with  which  the  farm  labor  problem  is  concerned, 
to  be  solved. 

This  problem  of  opening  the  minds  of  the  people  to  the 
truth  is  one  of  the  problems  of  the  hour.  Just  now  we  are 
beginning  to  vaguely  realize  that  the  scientists  who  have 
been  working  in  laboratories  for  the  purpose  of  deciding 
what  kind  of  fertilizer  was  best  for  certain  kinds  of  land ; 
what  kind  of  seed  would  grow  best  in  certain  territories; 
what  kind  of  stock  could  best  be  raised  from  certain  kinds  of 
food;  what  kind  of  trees  could  best  be  raised  from  certain 
kinds  of  soil  and  under  certain  climatic  conditions ;  have  not 
"been  wasting  their  time  in  chasing  unprofitable  theories," 
for  we  are  now  making  applications  of  them  in  actual  life 
that  are  leading  and  giving  zest  to  an  entirely  new  movement 
of  Back  to  the  Land — back  to  the  farm.  They  have  answered 
the  question  "What's  the  use?"  by  growing  better  fruit  on 
our  trees,  more  wheat  on  our  acres,  but  beyond  that  they 
are  giving  our  farmer  boys  a  vision  of  contentment. 

It  is  the  chemical  engineer  in  his  laboratory  who  has 
been  making  manufacturers  change  their  method  of  treating 


164 


ON    THE    ROAD    TO    DAMASCUS 


steel ;  Parsons,  with  his  turbine  theories,  and  Tesla,  with  his 
friction  disc  motor,  are  keeping  the  navy  departments  and 
the  owners  of  steamship  Hnes  awake  at  night.  Uneasy  Hes 
the  head  of  the  man  who  can  only  do  things.  The  educated 
man,  with  his  wider  vision  and  keener  insight  into  possibili- 
ties, is  constantly  preparing  for  the  new  thing.  He  foresees 
tendencies  and  imagines  the  chicken  while  it  is  yet  in  the 

"Science,"  as  Professor  J.  A.  Thomson  says  in  his  il- 
luminating "An  Introduction  to  Science,"  "is  justified  for  its 
own  sake  as  a  natural  and  necessary  human  activity.  But 
while  the  greatest  practical  gains  have  come  from  the  prose- 
cution of  'pure  science,'  it  may  be  agreed  that  Science  should 
be  socialized,  for,  after  all,  Science  is  for  Life,  not  Life  for 
Science.  As  Comte  said,  'Knowledge  is  foresight,  and 
foresight  is  power.'  " 

It  is  the  socialization  of  science  that  is  the  remarkable 
evidence  of  the  world's  progress  today. 

The  ignorant  man  is  the  man  of  let-well-enough-alone, 
the  so-called  "conservative"  man,  who  is  always  the  last 
to  adopt  a  new  thing  and  never  the  first  to  drop  an  old  one. 
His  is  the  type  of  the  closed  mind  with  which  old  communi- 
ties have  to  wrestle ;  and  to  whom  our  old  educational  sys- 
tem has  apparently  surrendered. 


CHAPTER    XIV 

SEEN     ON     THE     WAY 

And  as  he  journeyed,  he  came  near  Damascus:  and  sud- 
denly there  shined  round  about  him  a  light  from  Heaven. 

— Acts  IX,  3. 

An  Efficient  Type 

Study  the  Jew.  He  is  an  efficient  type.  For  two 
thousand  years  he  has  been  in  .bondage  to  tradition.  He  has 
been  despoiled  and  hounded,  but  he  has  made  every  nation 
pay  tribute  to  his  business  efficiency.  A  scientific  study  of 
his  commercial  methods  would  illuminate  a  world  which 
scoffs  and  sneers  while  it  pays,  pays,  pays.  He  knows  the 
world  as  he  finds  it;  and  he  sees  what  it  wants  and  keeps 
that  for  sale. 

The  Jew  has  learned  human  nature  in  the  hard  school  be- 
yond the  pale  of  the  Ghetto.  He  has  won,  as  the  child  wins, 
by  knowing  the  master.  The  Jew,  combining  the  oriental 
subtlety  of  his  race  with  the  simplicity  of  the  child,  gains  his 
end  by  catering  to  the  human  in  the  masses.  Only  force  has 
won  against  him,  because  he  loves  the  game  for  its  own 
sake.  He  is  the  shrewdest  reader  of  men  the  world  has 
ever  seen. 

A  Jew  fruit  peddler  was  selling  bananas  from  a  cart  at 
the  curb  the  other  day.  A  man  stepped  up  to  him — "How 
much  a  half  dozen?"  The  peddler  flipped  six  into  a  bag, 
handed  them  to  the  man  saying,  "  'Leven  cents."  The  man 
fished  up  the  money,  took  the  bag  and  went  on.  That  was 
salesmanship.  No  argument — no  chance  for  the  man  to 
hesitate  and  take  three — the  trade  was  a  forced  card.  The 
peddler  did  the  same  thing  to  three  women  and  two  more 

165 


1 66  ON    THE    ROAD    TO    DAMASCUS 

men  in  thirty  minutes.  "Not  good  for  selling  hats,"  you  say. 
That  is  not  the  point,  the  law  is  tliere;  i.  e.,  assume  some- 
thing ;  push  the  buyer  over  the  line. 

The  Jew  is  the  most  open-minded  of  traders.  He  plays 
the  game  according  to  the  rule,  "Know  your  goods  and 
your  customer."  He  is  not  at  all  a  missionary,  he's  a  sales- 
man. 

The  Work  and  the  Workers 

Labor  has  been  against  efficiency,  because  it  apparently 
makes  less  work  for  the  workers,  and  the  union  idea  has  been 
to  make  a  lot  of  work  for  a  lot  of  people. 

Economic  observers  unite  in  protest  against  the  attitude 
of  England's  select  leaders,  and  some  of  her  small  shop- 
men and  "statesmen"  today;  i.  e.,  "It  is  patriotic  to  employ 
as  many  people  as  we  can,  we  do  not  want  labor-saving  ma- 
chinery. We  want  work-making,  position-making  orders. 
We  want  to  employ  thousands  at  a  small  wage  rather  than 
hundreds  at  a  larger." 

Observers  tell  us  that  these  half-paid  and  necessarily 
unskilled  numbers  turn  out  poor  work;  the  cost  of  produc- 
tion cannot  keep  pace  with  the  lowering  prices  of  the  scien- 
tifically determined  efficiency  of  Germany,  the  machine  pro- 
duction of  America,  or  the  efficient  human  saving-machines 
of  France. 

England  has  the  wrong  viewpoint;  she  is  not  thinking 
right,  because  she  has  made  no  scientific  investigation  of 
the  methods  by  which  she  has  been  outclassed.  The  "half 
a  loaf"  which  is  better  than  none  to  her  millions  of  workers 
is  becoming  a  quarter  and  an  eighth  of  a  loaf.  Her  old  age 
pension  scheme  is  simply  a  recognition  of  industrial  ineffi- 
ciency. Her  workers,  as  another  has  said,  have  no  penny 
for  the  rainy  day  because  all  days  are  either  cloudy,  quite 
foggy,  or  very  wet ;  there  are  no  clear  days. 


SEEN    ON    THE    WAY  1 67 

Education  in  Efficiency 

In  taking  care  of  the  worker,  thought  must  be  taken  of 
the  proprietor  whose  prosperity  is  the  worker's. 

There  is  no  good  bargain  that  doesn't  give  both  parties 
a  bargain ;  both  sides  must  gain,  as  Wanamaker  has  shown 
in  his  buying  and  selHng  of  dry  goods. 

It  is  the  lack  of  proper  education  that  makes  our  people 
blind  to  the  fact  that  we  cannot  place  buyer  and  seller  in 
competition;  capital  and  labor  at  swords'  points;  employer 
and  employe  at  odds;  without  creating  a  waste  that  might 
be  largely  overcome  if  both  sides  could  have  a  proper  un- 
derstanding of  the  real  issues — more  open-mindedness  to 
their  vital,  common  necessities. 

That  we  shall  always  have  this  condition  to  some  ex- 
tent, I  trust  the  readers  will  fully  understand,  but  I  do  not 
believe  that  it  must  continue  in  its  present  aggravated  and 
inflamed  condition.  If  both  sides  were  better  educated,  had 
a  broader  knowledge  of  the  real  factors  in  the  solution  of 
the  problem,  it  would  help  toward  the  realization  of  an  at- 
tainable ideal.  Even  a  partial  solution  of  this  problem  of 
education  opens  up  the  mind  to  impressions,  makes  it 
hospitable  to  the  thought  and  knowledge  of  the  world.  This 
closed  or  open-mindedness  is  an  individual  social,  com- 
mercial, and  national  condition. 

The  Broader  Business  Education 

The  business  world  is  not  organized  efificiently  to  teach 
efficiency — because  it  does  not  know  how  to  study,  or  to 
teach  how  to  study. 

The  business  worker  must  therefore  teach  himself. 
There  are  so-called  business  schools  and  trade  schools,  which 
tend  to  make  men  believe  in  the  success  of  knowing  a  little 
about  one  thing,  because  they  teach  only  that  one  thing. 

On  the  other  hand  there  are  signs  of  the  spreading  of 


l68  ON    THE    ROAD    TO    DAMASCUS 

the  awakening  to  educational  work,  largely  through  the  in- 
strumentality of  broad-gauged  thinkers  who  are  investigat- 
ing the  efficient  way  in  which  other  nations  are  doing  their 
work,  other  firms  are  teaching  their  employes,  other  men 
are  studying  how  efficiently  to  apply  their  powers. 

The  "Man  from  Missouri"  is  the  main  stumbling  block 
in  the  way  of  progress  of  these  new  things.  It  is  so  easy  to 
be  "from  Missouri"  without  having  been  burdened  with 
brains  on  the  journey.  The  trouble  with  the  "Man  from 
Missouri"  is  that  he  knows  nothing,  believes  nothing,  talks 
about  nothing  save  that  which  he  saw  "in  Missouri."  If, 
true  to  its  original  purpose,  "from  Missouri"  were  a  reflec- 
tion of  good-natured  scepticism  of  the  validity  of  mere 
opinions  of  the  average  man  in  the  market,  a  genuine  open- 
mindedness  towards  scientifically  tested  experience,  it  would 
be  one  thing,  but  too  often  it  is  the  voicing  of  the  ready 
cynicism  of  the  ignoramus.  The  "Man  from  Missouri"  is 
a  valuable  type,  provided  he  has  taken  the  journey  to 
Damascus. 

The  general  superintendent  of  one  of  the  big  railroads 
west  of  Pittsburg  was  asked  what  kind  of  employes  were 
most  difficult  to  get.  He  answered :  "Track  laborers. 
Americans,  as  a  rule,  will  not  work  at  laboring  work,  and 
the  foreigner  has  to  be  taught.  This  takes  time,  which  we 
cannot  spare,  and  patience,  which  we  do  not  possess." 

The  Responsibility  of  the  Business  Man 

Isn't  that  an  illuminating  confession  for  a  manager  to 
make?  They  have  "neither  the  time  nor  patience"  to  make 
competent  employes !  What  is  a  superintendent  for  if  it  is 
not  to  have  the  time  and  patience  to  make  competent  work- 
ers? Our  great  institutions  must  teach,  and  they  must  teach 
men  to  be  valuable  to  themselves  as  well  as  to  the  business. 

The  Inisincss  man  must  take  a  greater  interest  in  the 


SEEN    ON    THE    WAY 


169 


schools.  Most  of  them  must  be  brought  closer  to  real  life 
on  the  farm,  in  the  office,  factory,  and  in  the  fields  of  dis- 
tribution. 

Business  men  now  lose  many  times  the  amount  of  time 
in  teaching  their  help  that  it  would  take  to  develop  a  more 
efficient  training  system  in  the  established  schools. 

Business  men  will  have  to  go  on  school  boards  and, 
through  the  Boards  of  Commerce  and  similar  organizations, 
insist  on  the  practical  as  well  as  cultural  value  of  teaching 
life  as  it  is  today. 

Education  for  Real  Life 

Teachers,  instead  of  spending  their  time  verifying  his- 
tories, photographing  ruins  in  Europe,  and  holding  conven- 
tions to  discuss  with  each  other  purely  academic  practices, 
should  be  given  time  to  work  in  offices  of  corporations,  re- 
tail stores,  railroads,  factories,  civic  organizations  and  com- 
mercial associations  and  cultivate  an  open-mindedness  to- 
wards the  real,  vital  things — the  living  problems  of  the  day 
■ — which  could  not  but  help  to  make  for  great  efficiency; 
which  would  react  in  favor  of  a  greater  efficiency  of  their 
students. 

They  must  socialize  their  education. 

Emperor  William  once  said  to  a  crowd  of  German  pro- 
fessors who  were  insisting  upon  the  necessity  of  a  classi- 
cal education — "It  is  our  duty  to  educate  young  men  to 
become  young  Germans  and  not  young  Greeks  or  Romans. 
We  must  relinquish  the  basis  that  has  been  the  rule  for  cen- 
turies, the  old  monastic  education  of  the  middle  ages  when 
lessons  in  a  little  Greek  were  most  important.  They  are  no 
longer  our  standard.  We  must  make  German  the  basis,  and 
German  composition  must  be  made  the  center  around  wliich 
everything  else  revolves." 

We  have  a  few  schools  that  have  taken  the  place  of  those 


170 


ON    THE    ROAD    TO    DAMASCUS 


classical  schools,  in  their  ability  to  do  for  real  life  what  those 
classical  schools  did  for  the  past.  Our  scientific  schools  do 
not  pay  the  wages  to  their  staffs  that  scientific  men  can  get 
in  business.  Too  few  of  our  business  colleges  are  operated 
by  men  who  could  command  any  decent  wage  in  the  or- 
ganizations for  which  they  are  training  men. 

The  man  who  has  taken  the  journey  to  Damascus  finds 
they  are  doing  some  things  better  in  Germany  than  we  are 
doing  them  here.  In  teaching  factory  employes  and  manual 
workers  generally,  it  seems  to  the  investigators  that  the 
German  method  makes  the  more  efficient  man.  While  the 
day  when  we  really  had  an  apprenticeship  system  seems 
to  have  gone  beyond  recall,  there  are  now  signs  of  its  re- 
turn in  slightly  different  form,  for  the  sake  of  the  employe 
as  well  as  the  employer,  and  certainly,  therefore,  for  the 
good  of  society. 

Theory  and  Practice 

We  have  found  that  our  type  of  the  technological  school, 
the  manual  training  school  and  the  trade  school  does  not 
take  the  place  of  shop  practice,  and  there  are  signs  that  the 
unions  and  employers'  associations  will  come  to  a  common- 
sense  agreement  on  this  subject.  The  University  of  Cin- 
cinnati has  developed  the  co-operative  educational  idea.*  The 
students  are  taught  how  to  think  in  the  class  room,  are  given 
a  broad  range  of  vision  of  the  work  they  are  studying,  and 
then  given  actual  contact  with  practice  by  being  put  to  work 
on  railroads,  in  foundries  and  machine  shops,  in  the  hos- 
pitals and  the  public  schools,  thus  making  the  school  and 
the  shop,  the  college  and  business  co-operate  to  produce  a 
truly  educated  worker.  The  system  of  instruction  under 
Dean  Herman  Schneider  of  the  University  of  Cincinnati 


•  This  plan  is  now  used,  wholly  or  in  part,  by  schools  and  colleges  in  several 
other  parts  of  the  country. 


SEEN    ON    THE    WAY 


171 


College  of  Engineering,  has  been  worked  out  completely.  It 
is  successful  because  its  principle  is  right;  i.  e.,  developing 
the  thinking  as  well  as  the  doing  sides  of  the  men. 

This  means  that  the  Cincinnati  business  men  are  finding 
the  value  of  education  to  employes,  and  the  student  the  value 
of  practice  to  the  thinker.  Ultimately  the  labor  unions  will 
have  to  meet  this  issue.  They  will  have  to  protect  their 
crafts  by  a  system  of  trained  apprenticeships  and  will  have 
to  raise  standards  of  wages  by  raising  mental  powers  and 
efficiency  of  the  workers.  Large  wages  alone  never  raised 
the  standards  of  men,  homes,  or  powers  as  was  seen  in  the 
golden  days  of  steel  making  in  Pittsburgh  when  wages  there 
were  two  or  three  times  what  they  are  today. 

"Made  in  Germany" 

Germany  has  a  relatively  efficient  industrial  system;  it 
is  based  on  education  by  apprenticeship,  to  give  the  worker 
skill  and  dexterity  of  hand.  The  German  apprentice  goes 
to  school  while  he  is  learning  to  do  things  in  the  shop.  He 
studies  during  the  night  and  has  a  few  hours  of  day  study 
each  week  and  as  F.  A.  Halsey*  recently  reported,  this  work 
will  soon  have  more  daylight. 

The  German  schools  for  those  engaged  in  skilled  manual 
work  are  institutions  intended  to  train  the  minds  to  discover 
to  the  full  what  the  gain  in  manual  skill  and  dexterity  can 
accomplish  for  the  students.  Then  there  are  schools  to  help 
the  worker  to  develop  his  vision  and  breadth  of  grasp  after 
he  has  finished  his  apprenticeship. 

By  comparison  we  see  the  faulty  processes  of  the  Ameri- 
can desire  to  do  things.  We  boast  about  showing  our  boys 
how  to  do  things;  in  reality  we  should  devote  the  time  to 
making  him  do  things  under  the  exact  conditions  he  will 
have  to  do  them  in  real  life,  and  then,  after  he  has  done 


•  Editor,  The  American  Machinist,  New   York. 


172 


ON    THE    ROAD    TO    DAMASCUS 


them,  teach  him  how  to  think  about  what  he  has  done,  that 
he  may  do  the  work  better. 

The  German  method  is  to  teach  a  man  the  broad  standard 
of  Hfe's  practice,  then  teach  him  to  observe  everything  so 
that  he  may  apply  ideas  to  what  he  does.  This  broadening 
process  produces  open-mindedness,  makes  him  hospitable  to 
the  other  man's  ideas,  even  to  the  ideas  of  an  entirely  dif- 
ferent craft. 

In  the  east  you'll  see  "Made  in  Germany"  stamped  on 
everything  from  tin  mugs  to  one-handle  plows.  Why?  Be- 
cause the  American  says:  "One-handle  plows?  What 
blasted  idiocy;  of  course  not!  Why  should  we  make  'em; 
nobody  ought  to  use  'em."  Of  course  the  order  goes  to 
Germany.  Down  in  Spanish  America  they  don't  like  flat 
last  shoes ;  they  want  the  long,  narrow  pointed  upturned  toe. 
They  get  them  from  England  and  Germany.  Why?  Be- 
cause, as  Senator  Lafayette  Young  told  us,  "our  American 
wants  to  be  a  missionary  instead  of  a  salesman" ;  he  is  not 
educated  to  understand  that  under  any  condition  can  a  one- 
handle  plow  or  an  upturned  toe  on  a  shoe  be  right. 

German  and  American  Educational  Methods 

To  show  the  concrete  difference  in  German  and  Ameri- 
can educational  methods,  look  at  this  curriculum  of  a  school 
for  training  German  basket  workers : 

German  language  and  com-  Freedom  of  industry 

mercial  papers  Organization  of  chambers  of 
Grammar  commerce  and  industry 

Reading  Industrial  legislation 

Correct  writing  Communities 

Industrial  calculations  Social  and  economic  ar- 
Industrial  bookkeeping  rangements 

History  of  industry  and  has-  Constitution    of    state    and 
ket  weaving  empire 


SEEN    ON    THE    WAY 


173 


Geometrical  drawing  Workshop     instruction,     in- 

Elements  and  theory  of  pro-  chiding  knowledge  of  ma- 

jection  terials,    tools    and    appli- 

Freehand  drawing  ances 

Technical  drawing  Cultivation  of  osiers 

That  is  the  kind  of  course  which  produces,  when  joined 
to  workshop  skill,  an  education  calculated  to  grow  thinkers 
in  basket  weaving. 

The  trade  school  in  Germany  is  for  the  purpose,  as  it 
should  be,  of  increasing  efficiency  by  making  thinkers,  rea- 
soners,  planners,  of  the  workers.  In  America  we  do  not 
want  to  be  bothered  with  teaching  our  help  anything;  we 
want  "the  man  who  can  carry  the  message  to  Garcia" ;  we 
want  him  to  come  to  us  full  grown  and  expert,  as  our  rail- 
road superintendent  did  with  his  track  laborers.  The  man 
who  took  the  message  to  Garcia  had  been  taught  how  to  do 
that  stunt  in  one  of  the  best  man-factories  of  our  country, 
the  West  Point  Military  Academy.  Of  course  that  fact 
completely  escapes  our  rule-of-thumb  type  of  business  man. 

American  Man-Culture 

The  American  system  of  man-culture  is  like  the  method 
of  the  florist  who  destroys  a  dozen  buds  in  order  that  one 
especially  large  blossom  may  result. 

Unfortunately  we  do  not  get  rid  of  the  men  thus  elimi- 
nated from  the  big  race.  Such  men  compose  the  under- 
world, the  failures,  the  inmates  of  asylums,  the  bums,  the 
poor-house  inmates,  the  near  successes,  the  futile  workers. 
Society  pays  the  price  of  the  delivery  of  the  message  to 
Garcia.  Like  the  salesman's  overcoat  in  the  expense  ac- 
count, we  may  not  see  it,  but  it  is  there.  Let  us  make  no 
mistake  about  it. 

In  considering  this  question  of  the  efficiency  of  our  edu- 


174 


ON    THE    ROAD    TO    DAMASCUS 


cational  institutions,  I  recommend  to  the  business  man's  at- 
tention the  report  of  Morris  L.  Cooke  on  the  Academic 
Efficiency  of  American  Colleges  and  Universities,  issued  by 
the  Sage  Foundation. 

Mr.  Cooke  makes  two  appealing  suggestions : 

First — To  divorce  the  teaching  and  examining  faculties, 
because  it  is  axiomatic  that  the  value  of  work  should 
be  passed  upon  by  someone  who  did  not  do  the  work. 

Second — That  we  stop  the  inbreeding  policy  of  American 
universities ;  i.  e.,  the  tendency  to  hire  their  own  grad- 
uates to  teach ;  this  produces  a  fixation  of  ideas  and  is 
against  that  open-mindedness  that  should  be  the  very 
essence  of  education. 

I  recommend  also,  that  the  business  man  read  carefully  the 
Wisconsin  law  which  has  produced  so  excellent  a  result  in 
that  annoyingly  progressive  commonwealth. 

The  Corporation  School 

Within  the  past  four  years  there  has  been  a  very  notable 
tendency  for  great  merchants  to  establish  schools  of  their 
own,  because  they  realize  that  men  must  know  before  they 
can  do. 

In  19 1 3  a  number  of  corporations  organized  a  national 
association  for  the  development  of  corporation  schools.* 

Such  progressive  corporations  as  the  National  Cash  Reg- 
ister Company  with  selling  and  apprenticeship  schools ;  Cur- 
tis Publishing  Company,  National  Cloak  &  Suit  Company, 
with  office  work  schools ;  General  Electric  Company,  with 
engineering  schools ;  New  York  Edison  Company,  with 
1,000  out  of  its  6,000  employes  in  company  schools;  and 
schools  of  different  kinds  in  nearly  two  hundred  other  cor- 
porations, show  what  seems  to  be  a  realization  of  the  com- 


•  National  Association  of  Corporation  Schools. 


SEEN    ON    THE    WAY  1 75 

mercial  leaders  that  education  must  be  given  the  worker  at 
any  cost  of  time,  skill  and  money. 

The  corporation  school  does  not  inculcate  purely  cultural 
ideals,  to  use  the  phrase  of  the  schoolmen,  but  it  aims  to 
select  material  that  shall  be  useful  in  the  particular  business, 
and  then  to  show  such  men  and  women,  boys  and  girls,  how 
to  work  in  that  business  with  greatest  benefit  to  themselves 
and  the  business. 

The  Wanamaker  School 

Realizing  that  men  will  not  of  their  own  volition  take 
the  journey  to  Damascus,  John  Wanamaker  on  March  12, 
1896,  established  what  has  become  "The  American  Uni- 
versity of  Trade  and  Applied  Commerce,"  "to  enable  the 
students  while  earning  their  livelihood,  to  obtain  by  text 
books,  lectures,  and  by  schools  of  daily  opportunity,  such 
practical  and  technical  education  in  the  art  and  sciences  of 
commerce  and  trade  that  they  may  be  later  equipped  to  fill 
honorable  positions  in  life  and  thereby  increase  personal 
earning  power." 

This  was  the  first  store  university  in  the  world.  More 
than  7,500  students  have  been  graduated.  The  course  of 
study  embraces : 

Hygiene  Auditing 

Physiology  Investments 

Ethics  Finance 

Logic  Banking 

Art  Commercial  Geography 

Music  Commercial  Law  and  Prac- 

Craftsmanship  tice 

Accounting 
and  the  seventy  or  eighty  merchandising  manuals,  covering 
all  the  departments  of  the  Wanamaker  store.     In  addition 
there  are  courses  in : 


1^6  ON    THE    ROAD    TO    DAMASCUS 

Dressmaking  Art  Embroidery 

Dress-cutting  Watch  and  Clock  repairing 

Shirt-cutting  Engraving 

Shirt-making  Upholstering 

Millinery  Carpet-making  and  laying 

and  more  of  these  special  and  technical  trades  courses  will 
be  added. 

Here  is  the  practical  doing,  linked  to  the  equally  im- 
portant practical  thinking,  well  demonstrated  in  actual  prac- 
tice by  one  of  the  greatest  practical  thinkers  on  this  conti- 
nent. Yet  what  gain  there  is  for  Wanamaker  efficiency  un- 
der such  a  store  school  method!  The  fundamental  differ- 
ence in  attitude  between  Wanamaker  and  the  railroad  su- 
perintendent must  be  apparent. 

It  should  be  well  worth  while  for  the  young  man  with 
nothing  but  brains,  anxious  to  make  a  right  start,  to  make  it 
in  such  a  school  as  this  one  of  Wanamaker's,  there  to  get 
light  on  the  problem  of  how  and  what  to  know. 

As  Dean  Johnson  of  the  School  of  Commerce,  Accounts 
and  Finance  of  the  University  of  New  York  said :  "Uni- 
versities of  this  country  know  what  is  going  on  in  Wana- 
maker's. Just  as  they  make  studies  of  plant  life  or  of  the 
stars,  so  are  our  universities  devoting  scientific  attention  to 
what  is  going  on  in  Wanamaker  stores." 

Improvement  Clubs  and  Special  Schools 

The  small  stores  of  our  cities  should  support  the  local 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  Courses  and  place  a  premium  on  those  clerks 
who  follow  the  courses  in  commercial  practice  and  attend 
the  lectures  on  salesmanship  and  advertising.  It  should  be 
a  part  of  the  work  of  the  store  to  support  these  courses ;  a 
part  of  the  employe's  duty  to  give  up  a  night  a  week  to 
them.    Some  of  the  more  enlightened  corporations  are  pay- 


SEEN    ON    THE    WAY 


177 


ing  all  of  the  fees,  others  a  part,  on  the  satisfactory  com- 
pletion of  courses. 

More  business  houses  should  encourage  their  employes 
to  conduct  improvement  clubs  and  help  them  to  arrange 
courses  of  winter  lectures  on  subjects  of  benefit  to  their 
work.  Some  have  tried  and  failed.  They  have  either  been 
run  on  the  cheap  plan  of  getting  free  talks  from  business 
men  who  didn't  know  and  showed  it,  or  who  knew  and 
couldn't  tell  it.  Others  have  had  too  much  preaching;  and 
others  ran  to  seed  because  they  wanted  to  think  with  their 
feet  rather  than  their  heads,  and  dancing  and  "good  times" 
took  the  place  of  all  serious  things. 

In  every  organization  there  is  a  fair  percentage  of  em- 
ployes who  want  to  improve.  Some  encouragement  must 
be  given  such  while  in  your  employ.  The  Wanamaker  sys- 
tem, modeled  on  the  German  method  seems  to  be  the  right 
one.  Its  principle  is  applicable  to  a  ten  or  a  ten-thousand 
employe  business. 

A  western  railroad  conducts  a  correspondence  school  for 
the  benefit  of  its  workers.  The  salesmanship  school  of  the 
National  Cash  Register  Company  is  famous  the  world  over, 
and  is  a  regular  feature  of  that  company's  work  in  Ameri- 
ca, Europe,  Japan,  Australia,  Great  Britain — wherever  the 
company  has  an  organization.  In  these  schools  the  com- 
pany officials  not  only  talk  business  and  selling,  but  they  go 
further  and  talk  of  the  business  of  life.  This  education  is 
not  merely  to  teach  the  men  to  know  more  about  the  product, 
but  to  widen  their  life  vision,  that  they  may  see  more  places 
where  the  product  may  be  sold. 


CHAPTER    XV 

THOSE  WHO  LEAD 

In  this  nezu  era  Knowledge  is  to  be  enshrined  in  the 
place  formerly  occupied  by  mere  Experience. 

Why  They  Are  Leaders 

It  wasn't  because  the  clothing-  manufacturers  of  Mil- 
waukee knew  anything  more  about  clothes  that  they  began 
to  advertise  their  brand  of  clothes  in  farm  papers,  but  be- 
cause they  learned  that  farmers  and  farmer  boys  would  buy 
good  clothes,  and  they  learned  that  farm  papers  reached 
more  farmers  than  did  any  other  class  of  mediums.  Other 
clothing  concerns  had  been  told  this,  but  they  couldn't  see 
it,  because  they  didn't  know  who  wore  good  clothes,  because 
"it  had  never  been  done  before." 

It  took  a  couple  of  Chicago  boys  who  knew  farmers — 
who,  by  the  way,  are  but  little  known  by  some  of  those  who 
sit  in  cities  and  fix  sales  policies — to  teach  the  phonograph 
people  that  phonographs  could  be  sold  by  mail  to  farmers. 
The  Babson  boys  took  some  space  in  the  farm  papers  and 
sold  phonographs  by  mail,  a  thing  that  might  have  been  done 
long  ago,  as  any  careful  investigation  of  the  phonograph 
sales  in  small  towns  might  have  shown.  The  Babson  boys 
saw  that  chance  because  they  knew  something  the  other  fel- 
low didn't. 

James  J.  Hill  has  always  been  studying  his  country,  his 
people,  and  their  problems.  He  spent  thirty-eight  years  at 
it,  and  he  made  a  railroad  man  of  himself.  He  did  some 
thinking.  We  are  told  that  in  the  silences  and  vastness  of 
the  great  northwestern   country,   over  which   he   traveled 

178 


THOSE    WHO    LEAD 


179 


until  he  knew  it  almost  as  a  man  knows  his  own  backyard, 
Hill  had  been  thinking  about  what  he  saw.  He  saw  the 
great  lumber  opportunities,  the  mineral  opportunities  in 
Minnesota  and  northern  Michigan,  the  fur  trading  in  the 
Hudson  Bay  Country,  the  great  wheat  fields  of  the  Dakotas 
and  the  northern  country  of  Montana,  the  great  cattle 
ranches.  He  visioned  this  continent  when  it  would  be  filled 
with  a  busy  people. 

He  wanted  the  St.  Paul  &  Pacific  Railroad.  It  was 
owned  by  Dutch  bondholders,  who  had  been  receiving  noth- 
ing from  it.  A  party  of  them  came  over  here  to  find  out 
why.  They  were  hard-headed,  practical  men.  The  Dutch- 
men were  taken  over  that  wind-swept  prairie,  shown  the 
bleak  and  sinister  desert,  the  stump-dotted  landscape,  with 
a  borrowed  engine  pulling  a  run-down-at-the-heel  car.  The 
Dutchmen,  the  hard-headed  gentlemen  who  had  never  been 
educated  in  the  school  of  pioneering,  couldn't  "see"  cities 
and  traffics  where  there  was  nothing  but  buffalo  grass  and 
rusty  rails,  and  sold  their  bonds  at  forty  cents  on  the  dollar. 
Hill  was  in  on  that  deal. 

We  are  told  that  Hill  has  sent  hundreds  of  young  boys 
to  agricultural  colleges  for  six  months  or  a  year,  because  he 
very  properly  says  that  the  only  thing  you  want  to  tell  a 
boy  is  to  show  him  how  to  think — how  to  think  consecutive- 
ly, how  to  plan  for  himself,  and  how  to  help  others  work  out 
their  plans.  Then  if  he  has  anything  in  him,  he'll  get  a 
plan  and  he'll  work  it  out.  If  the  plan  is  worth  anything 
and  he's  worth  anything,  he'll  make  money  at  the  proposi- 
tion. One  day  HiU  heard  about  Armour  getting  costs  down 
to  the  pig  squeal  basis.  He  saw  the  point.  It  was  neces- 
sary for  a  railroad  man  to  think  in  pennies,  so  he  thought  in 
pennies  on  the  question  of  transportation.  He  realized  that 
the  important  thing  was  to  find  out  how  much  it  took  to 
carry  one  ton  one  mile.     We  are  told  that  he  got  the  cost 


l8o  ON    THE    ROAD    TO    DAMASCUS 

down  to  791-1,000  of  a  cent;  then  he  got  it  down  to 
749-1,000  of  a  cent.  There  it  stuck  for  a  while,  and  now 
it's  lower  than  that. 

The  Originality  of  Adaptation 

Education  opens  the  mind  to  the  fact  that  originality  is 
out  of  the  question.  Adaptation  is  the  original  work  of  the 
producer.  Everything  starts  with  the  other  fellow;  just  be 
sure  to  start  where  he  leaves  off,  that's  the  main  thing. 
Originality  is  the  obsession  of  small  minds.  Abraham  Lin- 
coln has  the  credit  of  the  famous  phrase,  "That  this  nation, 
under  God,  shall  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom,  that  .govern- 
ment of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people,  shall  not 
perish  from  the  earth."  Yet  twenty-three  years  before  Lin- 
coln spoke  it,  Theodore  Parker  said,  "There  is  what  I  call 
the  American  idea ;  that  is  a  government  of  all  the  people, 
by  all  the  people,  for  all  the  people."  And  thirty-three  years 
before  Parker,  Daniel  Webster  had  said,  "The  People's 
Government  made  for  the  people,  made  by  the  people,  and 
answerable  to  the  people."  Yet  Lincoln  took  the  thought 
and  made  it  his  own  by  the  very  force  of  the  manner  in  which 
he  phrased  it  so  as  to  suit  the  environment  in  which  it  was 
delivered. 

Taking  Down  the  Blinds 

Take  a  simple  thing  like  listening  to  a  lecture.  Hardly 
one  man  in  a  thousand  knows  how  to  make  notes  so  as  to 
get  an  intelligible  idea  of  the  lecturer's  main  points.  Any 
man  who  has  lectured  before  the  average  American  audi- 
ence is  familiar  with  the  type  of  reporter  who  tries  "to  get 
everything."  They  do  not  attempt  to  select,  to  get  ideas, 
but  they  are  after  epigrams,  turns  of  expression,  similes ; 
they  are  collectors  of  phrases,  not  absorliers  of  thoughts. 
Listen  for  thoughts,  not  words — for  ideas,  not  phrases — is 


THOSE    WHO    LEAD  l8i 

the  advice  of  such  great  thinkers  as  Lincoln.  Talking  before 
sales  audiences  and  gatherings  of  business  you  will  find  all 
men  are  much  the  same.  Most  of  those  who  attend  con- 
ventions and  listen  to  even  the  best  speakers  with  a  message, 
never  take  home  anything  but  a  headache. 

Be  sure  you  have  different  things  to  think  about.  Don't 
specialize  so  much  on  one  thing  that  you  forget  all  of  the 
different  things  in  life  except  the  one  thing  in  which  you 
are  interested.  Take  occasional  forays  into  the  side  country ; 
there  you  will  find  provoking  folks  and  interesting  books; 
you  will  gain  new  and  strangely  illuminating  experiences. 
Always  progress  in  your  journey  toward  the  object,  the 
end  you  have  set  for  your  journey,  but  don't  forget  the 
country  through  which  you  are  passing — don't  lose  the 
present  entirely  for  the  sake  of  the  future. 

Education  That  Strengthens 

Mr.  W.  D.  Moody,  former  sales  manager  for  Gage 
Brothers  &  Co.,  of  Chicago,  once  said,  "The  salesman  who 
is  not  genuinely  in  earnest  will  hate  the  slow  and  tedious 
process  of  learning  how  to  handle  the  complicated  situation, 
the  going  into  all  the  details  with  the  customer  who  doesn't 
seem  willing  to  listen  and  to  consider  properly.  But  there 
lies  the  strengthening  experience.  Educate  your  salesmen 
to  know  what  selling  really  is  and  the  growth  which  leads 
to  mastery." 

The  sales  manager  of  the  Western  Electric  Company  said 
the  other  day :  "The  preparation  of  a  salesman  consists  of 
an  analysis  of  all  the  different  types  of  customers,  and  of 
framing  up  the  arguments  that  are  best  suited  to  convince 
each  before  starting  out  on  a  trip.  Going  over  the  sales 
list,  if  you  please,  and  finding  out  just  exactly  what  people 
he  is  going  to  visit,  and  sizing  up  exactly  what  will  best 
suit  each  of  them." 


1 82  ON    THE    ROAD    TO    DAMASCUS 

The  Basis  of  Successful  Work 

Frederick  Harrison  once  said: 

"Men's  business  here  is  to  know  for  the  sake  of 
living,  not  for  the  sake  of  knowing." 

That  point  of  view  constantly  maintained  will  lead  to  new 
powers  and  lines  of  possibility.  Every  man  who  studies  effi- 
ciently understands  that : 

I — Every  good  thing  begins  with  a  plan. 

2 — He  must  get  facts  that  support  his  plan. 

3 — He  must  organize  these  facts  into  true  relationships. 

4 — He  must  judge  of  their  real  value. 

5 — He  must  memorize  them,  because  he  must  know  them 

6 — He  must  use  them. 

7 — He  must  always  be  open  even  to  daily  revisions  of 
his  conclusions,  because  each  day  he  will  be  receiv- 
ing new  data. 

8 — He  must  decide  for  himself  what  value  the  result 
has  for  him  in  the  work  he  has  to  do. 

Getting  the  Viewpoint 

The  advertising  manager  for  a  manufacturer  of  a  famous 
candy  gave  an  inside  view  of  how  some  of  the  cleverest  ad- 
vertising managers  get  at  the  best  way  of  attacking  the  view- 
point of  the  reader: 

"I  found  out,  after  some  careful  reading,  that  Scott 
and  Dickens  were  authors  of  reputation  who  knew  best 
how  to  describe  a  meal  or  a  food.  Take,  for  instance, 
Scott's  Ivanhoe,  in  which  the  Black  Knight  invites  him- 
self, unbidden  by  his  host,  to  take  supper  with  the  friar. 
It  is  full  of  good  descriptive  suggestions,  and  of  a 
viewpoint.  Dickens,  besides  descriptions  of  eating  and 
drinking,  in  the  Pickwick  Papers,  has  the  remarkable 
meal  at  the  Inn,  participated  in  by  little  David  Copper- 
field  and  the  waiter.  The  analysis  of  these  incidents 
gave  some  of  the  words  and  methods  that  seemed  to 
be  most  successful  in  creating  an  appetizmg  atmosphere 


THOSE    WHO    LEAD  183 

about  a  food  product;  there  are  no  big  adjectives,  no 
long  descriptions,  nor  attempts  to  make  a  man's  mouth 
water,  but  there  is  that  linking  up  of  memory  with 
toothsome  dainties  and  appetizing  things  that  make 
the  appeal  to  the  senses  effective." 

This  showed  scientific  open-mindedness  to  what  can  be 
found  among  the  masters  of  style  in  the  Hterature  for  our  use 
even  in  the  marketplace.  Only  an  educated  man  would  get 
at  a  problem  in  that  manner. 

The  Open  Mind 

Suppose  a  man  would  close  his  mind  to  everything  but 
what  he  saw  yesterday  and  today,  and  would  choose  never 
again  to  see  anything  new.  He  would  in  twenty-four  hours 
be  no  better  than  yonder  wooden  doll  operated  by  clockwork, 
which  my  three-year-old  boy  has  discarded  for  a  live  puppy. 

Keep  your  mind  open  towards  the  future. 

A  writer  told  this  story  of  Connery,  the  old  managing 
editor  of  the  New  York  Herald: 

"It  was  thirty-two  years  ago  on  the  21st  of  last 
December  that  Connery,  then  managing  editor  of  the 
New  York  Herald,  rushed  into  the  office  three  hours 
earlier  in  the  day  than  was  his  practice,  and  sought 
Albert  E.  Orr,  the  city  editor.  Connery  carried  a  copy 
of  the  Herald  of  that  morning,  which  he  spread  out  on 
Orr's  desk,  and,  pointing  to  a  page  article  describing 
the  discovery  of  the  incandescent  electric  lighting  sys- 
tem by  Thomas  A.  Edison,  he  inquired,  almost  tear- 
fully: 'How  did  that  stuff  get  into  the  paper,  Mr.  Orr? 
Lights  strung  on  wires,  indeed  I  You've  made  a  laugh- 
ing stock  of  the  Herald.  Oh,  what  will  Mr.  Bennett 
say?' 

"  'He'll  probably  say  that  it  is  the  biggest  news- 
paper beat  in  a  long  time,'  responded  the  city  editor. 

"  'But  don't  you  know  that  it  has  been  absolutely 
demonstrated  that  that  kind  of  a  light  is  against  the  laws 
of  nature?'  demanded  Connery  pathetically.  Who 
wrote  the  article?' 

"  'Marshall  Fox,'  replied  Orr. 


184  ON    THE    ROAD    TO     DAMASCUS 

"  'How  could  he  have  allowed  himself  and  the  paper 
to  be  so  imposed  upon!'  cried  Connery.  'Where  is  he? 
Send  for  him.  We  must  do  something  to  save  our- 
selves from  ridicule.  No,  don't  try  to  explain  anything-. 
Just  find  Fox,  and  send  him  to  me,'  and  the  managing 
editor  retired  to  his  own  room  to  read  the  unbelievable 
article  over  again  and  reflect  upon  the  illimitability  of 
human  credulity  and  the  prospective  anger  of  the  pro- 
prietor of  the  Herald  when  he  saw  the  most  recent  mani- 
festation of  it  in  the  columns  of  his  newspaper." 

The  article  in  the  Herald  of  December  21,  1879,  said 
that  Edison  had  succeeded  in  subdividing  the  electric  cur- 
rent and  had  invented  a  light  better  than  gas,  that  could  be 
produced  as  cheaply ;  the  article  showed  that  this  was  one  of 
the  greatest  scientific  achievements  of  the  age,  and  that  the 
discovery  had  commercial  possibilities  that  made  the  phrase 
about  "wealth  beyond  the  dreams  of  avarice"  sound 
frivolous. 

I  don't  know  what  happened  to  Fox,  but  Connery  was 
not  using  the  newspaper's  usual  philosophy,  seeing's  be- 
lieving, no  matter  what  the  result. 

These  pages  might  be  filled  to  overflowing  with  such  in- 
stances even  if  this  book  were  a  hundred  times  its  size.  The 
world  progresses  by  tardily  following  the  few  who  look 
ahead,  peering  into  the  future,  with  minds  open  always  to 
the  truth. 

"Stop,  Look,  and  Listen*' 

Every  man  feels  the  pull  of  two  forces  in  his  daily  life — 
one,  founded  in  the  beliefs  of  others  who  think  they  have 
the  secret,  who  tell  him  to  follow  the  crowd  and  leave  "the 
big  problems  to  theorists  who  don't  know  anything  about 
how  to  be  successful."  The  other  force  says :  "  'Stop,  look, 
and  listen,'  and  be  sure  it  is  the  rising,  not  the  setting  sun, 
for  the  time  is  short  and  the  journey  long." 

The  clerk  who  follows  the  methods  of  the  crowd,  pulls 


THOSE    WHO    LEAD  185 

the  time-clock,  asks  for  an  increase  once  a  year,  damns  the 
methods  of  his  superior,  gets  as  much  fun  out  of  Hfe  as  he 
can,  loves,  begets  children,  and  finally  dies  a  part  of  the 
great  crowd  he  served,  with  his  mind  starved  into  meek 
submission  by  a  philosophy  founded  upon  Chance  and  special 
Providence. 

The  man  who  looks  into  tomorrow  must  not  expect  the 
plaudits  of  the  crowd.  The  crowd  has  no  time  for  the  man 
who  thinks  differently.  He  must  not  be  afraid  to  be  alone, 
for  those  who  make  the  journey  to  Damascus  travel  alone. 


PART   V 


Loyalty  to  the  Vision  of  Things 
Well  Done 

THE    FORELOPER 

(The  hitherto  lost  poem) 
The  gull  shall  whistle  in  his  wake,  the  blind  wave  break  in  tire, 
He  shall  fulfill  God's  utmost  will  unknowing  His  desire; 
And  he  shall  see  old  planets  pass  and  alien  stars  arise, 
And  give  the  gale  his  reckless  sail  in  shadow  of  new  skies. 
Strong  lust  of  gear  shall  drive  him  out  and  hunger  arm  his  hand 
To  wring  his  food  from  a  desert  nude,  his  foothold  from  the  sand. 
His  neighbors'  smoke  shall  vex  his  eyes,  their  voices  break  his  rest, 
He  shall  go  forth  till  South  is  North,  sullen  and  dispossessed; 
And  he  shall  desire  loneliness,  and  his  desire  shall  bring 
Hard  on  his  heels  a  thousand  wheels,  a  people,  and  a  king; 
And  he  shall  come  back  in  Iiis  own  track,  and  by  his  scarce  cool  camp, 
There  he  shall  meet  the  roaring  street,  the  derrick,  and  the  stamp ; 
For  he  must  blase  a  nation's  ways  with  hatchet  and  with  brand 
Till  on  his  last  won  wilderness  an  Empire's  bulwarks  stand. 

— RuDYARD  Kipling. 


CHAPTER    XVI 

THE     RELIGION     OF     LOYALTY 

A  man  is  loyal  zvhen,  first,  he  lias  some  cause  to  which 
he  is  loyal;  zvhen,  second,  he  zuilliiigly  and  thoroughly  de- 
votes himself  to  this  cause;  and  zvhen,  thirdly,  he  expresses 
his  devotion  in  some  sustained  and  practical  zvay,  by  acting 
steadily  in  the  service  of  his  cause. — Josiah  Royce. 

A  Message  from  the  Orient 

When  I  recall  those  who  have  contributed  most  to 
the  gospel  of  efficiency  in  thinking,  living,  and  pro- 
ducing, among  the  few  the  short,  stout,  active  figure  of 
one  man  insistently  appears  before  my  mind's  eye.  It 
is  that  of  Japan's  greatest  business  man,  Baron  Shibus- 
awa.  When  he  came  to  Detroit  in  October,  1909,  at 
the  head  of  the  Honorary  Commercial  Commissioners 
and  Trade  Experts  from  Japan,  it  was  my  good  fortune 
to  gain  a  few  words  with  him  while  he  was  visiting  our 
home  plant. 

He  couldn't  understand  my  English  nor  I  his  Japan- 
ese, but  through  an  interpreter  he  gave  me  a  theme  for 
thought  I  shall  not  soon  exhaust.  I  asked  him  what  he 
considered  the  strongest,  most  characteristic  national 
trait  of  his  countrymen.  Succinctly  put  his  answer  was: 
"Loyalty  to  the  wisdom  of  the  Dead."  Afterwards  he 
sent  me  some  original  maxims  for  publication  in  the 
monthly  paper  we  printed  ifor  our  2500  employes.  It 
is  well  to  understand  that  Japanese  business  men  are 
students  as  well  as  money  makers,  and  the  Baron  is  a 
student  of  the  Chinese  classics  and  an  authority  on  Con- 

189 


1 90 


LOYALTY  TO  THE  VISION  OF  THINGS  WELL  DONE 


fucius.     Among  these   maxims   of  the   Baron's   was   one 

which   illuminated   his   remark   to  me:     "Bear  in   mind 

patriotism    and    loyalty;    and    you  must    not    neglect    to 
serve  the  people." 

The  Spirit  of  the  New  Japan 

Anyone  studying  the  characteristic  methods  of  the 
Japanese,  must  be  struck  with  their  quiet,  calm,  un- 
swerving concentration  of  purpose;  that  persistent  loyalty 
to  a  carefully  considered  plan  of  action;  the  unrelenting 
constancy  with  which  the  plan  and  purpose  of  their 
national  program  progresses,  and  which,  in  spite  of  all 
handicaps  of  circumstances  and  against  all  opposition, 
has  carried  them  to  success  along  that  tragic  trail  which 
leads  through  Manchuria  to  the  domination  of  Korea. 

A  writer  in  describing  the  scene  attending  the  dec- 
laration of  war  on  Russia,*  vividly  paints  this  characteristic 
concentration  in  a  historic  scene : 

"  'On  the  sixth  night  of  the  second  moon  of  the 
thirty-seventh  year  of  Meiji,'  is  the  way  the  Japanese 
start  to  describe  the  beginning  of  the  Russo-Japanese 
War.  On  that  night  of  1904  the  battleship  Mikasa  lay 
silent  in  the  harbor  of  Sasebo,  on  the  western  shore  of 
Japan.  Summoning  before  him  all  his  officers,  Admiral 
Heihachiro  Togo,  the  commander,  announced:  'We  sail 
tonight.  Our  enemy  flies  the  Russian  flag.'  The  rest 
of  the  address  found  no  expression  in  words.  The  Ad- 
miral fixed  his  eyes  on  a  short  dagger  which  lay  on  the 
purple  cloth  before  him.  A  signal  was  given  to  the 
officers  to  file  past.  Togo  uttered  not  a  word.  He 
looked  at  the  dagger,  then  he  looked  at  each  man  as 
he  passed,  and  every  officer  understood  the  message — 
that,  should  the  first  attack  on  the  Russian  squadron 
at  Port  Arthur  fail,  no  Japanese  officer  should  survive 
the  disgrace.  Thus  opened  the  first  scene  of  the  Russo- 
Japanese  War." 


The  Outlook,  New  York. 


THE    RELIGION     OF    LOYALTY 


191 


Japanese  Loyalty  Plus  Efficiency 

The  average  Western  mind  does  not  grasp  the  phil- 
osophy and  scheme  of  thought  of  the  Japanese.  Times 
change  as  does  thought.  It  is  only  the  narrow,  pro- 
vincial, and  ill-tutored  who  believe  that  any  age  has 
written  "finis"  to  progress,  that  any  creed  has  grasped 
God,  that  any  philosophy  can  reflect  all  of  life. 

The  pathos  of  the  belief  in  the  finality  of  any  dogma 
is  written  all  over  human  history. 

The  Austrian  general  who  fought  against  Napoleon 
in  the  immortal  first  campaign  in  Italy,  complained: 
"This  fellow  is  not  a  soldier.  He  doesn't  understand  a 
single  rule  of  the  classic  art  of  war;  his  strategy  is  really 
abominable  !"  Napoleon  evolved  new  theories  of  war,  which, 
in  turn,  save  that  of  the  irresistible  initiative,  were  over- 
thrown by  von  Moltke  in  another  epochal  campaign.  So 
the  Russians  complained  of  the  conduct  of  that  campaign 
which  ended  in  the  fall  of  Port  Arthur. 

The  Japanese  played  the  game  according  to  the  great 
laws  of  efificiency,  new  applications  of  which  they  learned 
of  Germany  as  to  their  army,  and  of  England  as  to  their 
navy.  Animating  it  all  was  the  striking  individual  and 
collective  loyalty  to  the  great,  vital,  national  need,  the 
future  expansion  of  their  race,  and  to  the  belief  that  the 
East  is  to  remain  the  property  of  the  yellow  brother. 
They  prayed  to  their  gods,  but  they  kept  their  eyes 
open,  their  minds  receptive  to  Western  knowledge,  their 
bayonets  sharp  and   their  powder  dry. 

This  animating  spirit  of  a  new  Japan,  comes  from  the 
old  precepts,  the  Bushido  (boo-she-do)  of  the  Samurai, 
the  religion  of  loyalty,  translated  into  a  patriotism  that 
the  better  part  of  Japan  has  long  accepted  as  its  religion. 
The  Japanese  take  a  long  view  of  life,  for  the  motive  has 
always  been  for  the  nation  and  not  for  the  individual.     It 


192 


LOYALTY  TO  THE  VISION  OF  THINGS  WELL  DONE 


is  the  creed  of  the  artist,  rather  than  the  artisan;  it  is 
the  pursuit  of  ideas,  not  routine;  it  is  applying-  world- 
intelHgence,  not  a  personal  rule-of-thumb,  to  one's  own 
work.  The  American  is  too  apt  to  say  that  such  a  code  is 
anti-individuahstic,  that  "it  reduces  man  to  a  machine," 
that  it  "stifles  initiative."  On  the  contrary,  the  code  raises 
co-operation  to  the  level  where  we  place  competition.  It 
makes  a  man  master  of  the  machine.  He  is  its  slave  today 
because  he  cannot  use  the  machine  at  top  efficiency. 

Adaptation  as  an  Efficiency  Factor 

Accurate  observers  among  world  travellers  and  cos- 
mopolitan business  men  tell  us  that  men  are  much  the 
same  the  world  over. 

Foreigners,  coming  here  to  trade,  easily  adopt  our 
customs,  apply  our  methods,  and  are  successful;  we  go 
abroad  and  gain  trade  as  we  adapt  ourselves  to  their 
methods.  Our  real  difficulty  in  doing  business  in  foreign 
fields  is  our  failure  to  approach  them  with  the  same  desire 
to  do  business,  the  same  keen  appreciation  of  the  prob- 
lems, the  same  humble  acknowledgment  of  the  customer's 
power,  that  we  adopt  towards  the  customer  at  home.  We 
are  too  cocksure  of  our  superior  methods.  We  admit 
we  must  study  Texas  as  different  from  Quebec,  New 
Orleans  as  different  from  Seattle.  But  London  different 
from  New  York,  or  Detroit  different  from  Leicester? 
Why,  of  course  not! 

We  do  not  study  markets.  "We  send  the  boys  to 
get  the  business,"  says  the  doer  type.  We  find  fault 
with  the  market  or  the  buyer,  a  thing  we  wouldn't 
permit  a  salesman  to  do  here.  We  have  not  learned  to 
"cater." 

So  we  fail  in  competition  with  the  German  in  such 
cases.     The  German  studied   four  years  at   a  university 


THE    RELIGION    OF    LOYALTY 


193 


and  specialized  in  foreig^n  markets,  especially  the  one  he 
was  entering.  He  spent  at  least  a  year  in  the  home  office 
studying  the  product,  then  went  to  his  territory  and 
worked  on  the  ground  getting  acclimated  and  securing 
a  verification  and  perspective.  Our  representative  was 
probably  snatched  from  South  Bend,  took  a  course  in 
Spanish  (for  "all  people  speak  Spanish  in  South  Ameri- 
ca") from  a  correspondence  school,  was  given  a  price  list 
on  the  line,  a  letter  of  credit,  and  a  bundle  of  tourists' 
folders  and  told  to  go  "get  the  business,"  where  no 
advertising  had  ever  been  done,  and  where  the  house 
and  goods  were  as  unknown  as  the  name  of  Tilly's  aunt's 
sister's  cousin-in-law. 

But  that  is  the  way  many  houses  have  done  busi- 
ness at  home.  They  fail  abroad  in  the  face  of  scientific 
methods,  as  they  have  failed  at  home  in  the  face  of  keener 
competition. 

The  World  Spirit 

A  man  is  a  man  the  world  over.  Efficiency  is  effi- 
ciency the  world  over.  It  is  a  great  illumination  when 
we  find  that  the  rest  of  the  world  is  peopled  by  beings  just 
like  ourselves.  Some  people  never  find  it  out.  Slavs 
and  "Dagos"  and  Finns  are  really  not  human  beings  to 
some  people;  they  are  a  kind  of  article  imported  in  liberal 
quantities  from  other  countries  for  the  purpose  of  doing 
the  common  forms  of  labor. 

But,  class  for  class,  men  are  much  the  same  as  we 
are  the  world  over,  with  only  a  different  accent  on  dif- 
ferent things.  Strong,  thinking,  efficient  men  are  the 
same  the  world  over.  And  the  weak,  sensual,  foolish, 
thoughtle-s,  sentimental  —  they  are  the  same  every- 
where. 

There  is  a  world  spirit,  the  linnian  nature  of  mankind 


194 


LOYALTY  TO  THE  VISION  OF  THINGS  WELL  DONE 


which  dominates  the  world.  It  is  discovering  itself  in 
this  era  of  wireless  telegraphy,  international  press  dis- 
patches, and  interlacing  ocean  highways. 

In  Japan  it  is  Bushido,  in  Turkey,  Mohammedanism, 
in  Europe  and  America,  Christianity — in  all  it  is  what 
Mathew  Arnold  called,  "Morality  touched  by  emotion," 
and  somewhat  dependent  upon  geographical  economics. 

Bushido 

Bushido  has  made  Japan  what  it  is.  It  is  the  simple 
reflection  of  the  finest  and  best,  sprung  from  the  psy- 
chology of  a  people,  growing  out  of  their  lives,  formulated 
by  their  Thinkers,  visioned  by  their  Seers,  and  in  the 
hands  of  the  Samurai  becoming  the  master  influence  of 
the  life  of  the  people. 

Bushido  is  an  attitude  of  mind.  It  was  founded  on 
the  simple  truth,  "As  a  man  thinks,  so  he  is." 

It  means  military-knight-ways,  the  ways  the  master 
or  knight  class  should  observe  in  their  daily  duties  of 
life  as  well  as  vocation.* 

The  Samurai  said  that  knowledge  for  the  mere  pur- 
pose of  knowing  was  pedantic,  and  a  scholar  was  often 
nothing  but  "a  book-smelling  rat." 

The  Samurai  wanted  the  learning  that  was  of  use, 
that  had  become  a  guide  to  noble  conduct,  that  had 
made  high  character;  but  for  mere  learning  there  was 
no  use.  Moral  worth  was  esteemed  more  highly  than 
brains. 

Learning  may  not  act,  but  action  makes  knowledge 
of  learning  us.  Wan  Yang  Ming,  the  Chinese  philosopher 
says  over  and  over  again — "To  know  and  to  act  are  one 
and  the  same  thing."  Bushido  was  a  system  of  thought, 
not  put   down   in   writings  arranged   in   books   or  tablets. 


•  "Bushido,"  by  Inazo  Nitobe,  A.M., Ph.D.  of  Imperial  University  of  Tokyo. 


THE    RELIGION    OF    LOYALTY  195 

but  handed  from  father  to  son,  from  knight  to  warrior, 
as  the  sacred  fire  kept  alive  throughout  the  centuries  by 
the  imperishable  memory  of  fine  and  noble  acts  and  great 
deeds. 

The  Principles  of  Bushido 

It  was  founded  on  some  simple  precepts,  which  have 
been  reduced  to  definite  terms  by  Dr.  Inazo  Nitobe  in 
his  book  on  Bushido,  from  which  I  quote  to  illustrate 
the  principles  on  which  the  Japanese  national  efficiency 
is  founded. 

Dr.  Nitobe  says:  "Few  and  simple  as  these  (the 
principles  of  Bushido)  were,  they  were  sufficient  to  fur- 
nish a  safe  conduct  of  life  even  through  the  unsafest  days 
of  the  most  unsettled  period  of  our  nation's  history." 

I — Rectitude  or  Justice.  Which  a  Bushi  once  de- 
fined— "Rectitude  is  the  power  of  deciding  upon  a  certain 
course  of  conduct  in  accordance  with  reason,  without 
wavering;  to  die  when  it  is  right  to  die;  to  strike  when 
to  strike  is  right." 

So  we  get  the  principle  of  unwavering  devotion  to 
the  vision  of  things  well  done.  Do  we  not  pay  tribute 
to  the  man  who  shows  fealty  to  his  vision?  to  Field  and 
his  submarine  cable?  to  Grant  and  his  ceaseless  pounding? 
to  the  scientist  Ehrlich  and  his  six  hundred  and  six  ex- 
periments? to  all  those  men  who  live  in  the  purple  of  a  high 
purpose  ? 

2 — Courage — The  Spirit  of  Daring  and  Bearing.  This 
principle  was  "Doing  what  is  right."  It  was  not,  how- 
ever, as  is  thought  sometimes,  foolhardy  courage  as  in 
battle.  It  is  sometimes  the  harder  part  to  live.  In 
Bushido  there  is  the  "Great  Valor"  and  the  "Valor  of  a 
Villain."      So   our   great   captains   have    fought   the   fight 


196      LOYALTY  TO  THE  VISION  OF  THINGS  WELL  DONE 

in  the  market  place,  and  stripped  themselves  to  the  last 
penny  for  their  honor's  sake.  They  have  then,  in  calm 
serenity,  returned  to  the  fight  to  gain  a  new  victory,  or 
another  failure — but  their  courage  never  faltered.  We 
have  always  honored  the  man  of  moral  courage  more  than 
him  of  mere  physical  temerity. 

3 — Benevolence — The  Sympathy  zvith  Distress.  The 
highest  quality  of  the  ruler  was  benevolence.  Love,  mag- 
nanimity, affection,  sympathy,  pity — these  were  the 
supreme  virtues,  worthy  of  a  King. 

We  see  it  in  the  great  captains  of  industry,  appearing 
after  a  century  of  eclipse.  Men  are  coming  into  life; 
they  are  to  be  recognized  as  men;  in  their  lives  recog- 
nized; in  their  rights  appreciated.  It  is  not  charity,  but 
brotherhood.  Mencius  said  of  kings  what  may  be  said 
of  our  industrial  emperors :  "It  is  impossible  that  any- 
one should  become  ruler  of  the  people  to  whom  they  have 
not  yielded  the  subjection  of  their  hearts." 

Again  in  the  "Chinese  Book  of  Poetry" — "Until  the 
house  of  Yin  lost  the  hearts  of  the  people,  they  could 
appear  before  Heaven." 

Men  of  great  power  must  learn  that  simple  philosophy 
and  walk  in  its  light,  else  they  must  be  prepared  to  walk 
in  darkness  and  alone. 

Burke  said  in  his  "French  Revolution":  "a  paternal 
government  is  one  where  the  people  obey  with  that  proud 
submission,  that  dignified  obedience,  that  subordination  of 
heart  which  kept  alive,  even  in  servitude  itself,  the  spirit  of 
exalted  freedom." 

Benevolence  was  not  free  giving,  but  just  and  right 
giving.  It  made  it  possible  to  help  many  who  were  de- 
serving with  what  but  a  few  could  enjoy  if  benevolence 
were  permitted  to  become  weakness. 


THE    RELIGION    OF    LOYALTY 


197 


-Politeness — The  Distinguishing  Virtue  of  the  Japan- 
ese. "It  should  be  the  outward  manifestation  of  the 
sympathetic  regard  for  others."  There  is  an  efficiency 
principle  in  politeness  which  may  serve  to  show  how  we 
unconsciously  attempt  to  become  efficient. 

"If  there  is  anything  to  do,"  says  Nitobe,  "there  is  cer- 
tainly a  best  way,  both  the  most  economical  and  the  most 
graceful." 

Spencer  defines  grace  as  "the  most  economical  man- 
ner of  motion."  Professor  Nitobe  speaks  of  the  Japan- 
ese tea  ceremony  as  a  proof  of  the  economy  of  fare  and 
service. 

The  elaborate  rules  of  etiquette  were  to  the  national 
character  the  perfected  way  of  doing  things,  in  which 
character  and  individuality  were  shown  by  the  perfection 
of  observance  of  the  law  rather  than  in  the  crudity  of 
its  non-observance.  This  pride  in  the  capacity  to  idealize 
both  the  spirit  and  the  letter  of  the  law,  is  another  of  the 
principles  of  efficiency. 

Nitobe  says:  "It  means,  in  other  words,  that  by  con-, 
stant  exercise  in  correct  manners,  one  brings  all  the  parts 
and  faculties  of  the  body  into  perfect  order  and  into  such 
harmony  with  itself  and  its  environment  as  to  express 
the  mastery  of  spirit  over  flesh." 

Bushido  makes  politeness  essentially  a  spiritual  grace 
bodied  forth  in  action.  It  is  efficient  because  it  produces 
its  effect  at  the  least  possible  cost. 

5 — Veracity  and  Sincerity.  Bushido  inculcated  the  high- 
est standard  of  veracity  and  made  politeness  which  "was 
carried  beyond  right  bounds  a  lie."  The  Chinese  ideo- 
gram for  Sincerity  is  in  "The  Perfect  Word."  The  Sam- 
urai gave  no  written  guarantee  of  his  promise.  His  word 
was  sufficient. 


IC|8       LOYALTY  TO  THE  VISION  OF  THINGS  WELL  DONE 

Many  believe  that  the  Japanese  are  deceitful,  that 
their  commercial  integrity  is  lower,  for  instance,  than 
that  of  the  Chinese.  Suppose,  pledged  by  our  social 
standards,  our  business  were  placed  in  the  hands  of  the 
lowest  stratum  of  our  people.  What  would  happen  to  our 
commercial  morals?  The  merchant  class,  under  Bushido, 
was  the  lowest  in  the  social  scale.  The  order  of  social 
precedence  was:  knight,  tiller  of  the  soil,  mechanic,  mer- 
chant. 

The  Samurai  could  not  go  into  trade;  he  was  an  aris- 
tocrat ;  he  could  own  a  farm,  and  accept  income  from  it, 
but  he  could  not  have  an  income  from  trade. 

It  is  different  with  us.  Ours  is  an  aristocracy  of 
trade. 

In  Europe,  trade  is  beneath  the  truly  noble. 

The  Samurai  were  of  these  truly  noble. 

There  is  a  deeper  reason  than  at  first  appears,  for  this 
condition,  in  the  Japanese  system. 

Nitobe  calls  our  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  de- 
cadence of  Rome  began  when  the  powerful  nobles  were 
permitted  to  engage  in  trade,  because  it  meant  that 
wealth,  brains  and  power  were  monopolized  by  a  single 
class. 

The  merchants,  under  Bushido,  had  no  place  in  decent 
society,  hence  they  became  what  they  were  thought  to  be. 
The  tradesmen  naturally  banded  together  to  dispoil  the 
other  classes.  But  there  will  come  a  change  in  this,  as 
already  appears  in  Japanese  business. 

Lecky  says,  "Veracity  has  owed  its  growth  to  com- 
merce and  manufacture."  Germany  at  one  lime  was  con- 
sidered the  most  unscrupulous  imitator  and  competitor 
among  nations.  It  didn't  pay.  Japan  will  learn  the  same 
lesson.  Bushido  considered  lying  an  evidence  of  weakness, 
therefore  beneath  the  Srunurai,  but  seemed  to  think  it  quite 


THE    RELIGION     OF    LOYALTY 


199 


natural  that  the  merchant  should  be  a  liar,  deceitful  and 
dishonorable. 

6 — Honor,  the  Most  Sacred  of  tlie  Virtues  of  Bushido. 
It  was  bound  up  in  an  ever  present,  punctilious  sense  of  per- 
sonal worth,  dignity,  and  privilege.  It  was  the  great 
incentive  to  the  deeds  of  valor  and  abnegation  which  dis- 
tinguished the  Samurai.  It  was  a  living  thing  to  the 
Samurai  because  it  was  himself.  Like  the  Spartan  boy 
who  went  out  to  war  enjoined  to  return  with  his  shield 
or  upon  it,  so  the  Japanese  boy  swore  to  gain  fame  and 
honor  and  to  "return  home  caparisoned  in  brocade."  But 
this  fame  had  to  be  gained  through  the  display  of  all  the 
knightly  virtues.  Of  course  many  fought  hard  and  noble 
fights  for  a  meaner  and  a  lesser  glory. 

7 — TJie  Duty  of  Loyalty.  Here  lies  our  present  inter- 
est. For  the  Samurai,  there  was  loyalty  to  the  sovereign 
and  to  the  departed,  but  this  loyalty  was  to  be  recipro- 
cated by  the  sovereign.  The  Samurai  would  give  up  to  the 
sovereign  all  but  one  thing — honor ;  that  he  would  not  give, 
and  "the  capricious  will  or  freak  or  fancy  of  a  sovereign 
were  accorded  a  low  place  in  the  estimate  of  the  precepts." 

Loyalty,  therefore,  called  for  steadfastness  in  the  pur- 
suit of  that  which  had  been  found  to  be  good  and  right, 
measured  by  the  precepts,  and  it  permitted  nothing  to 
stand  in  the  way  of  accomplishment. 

8 — Education  and  Training.  These  were  required  to 
make  the  Samurai  effective.  It  was  necessary  to  carry 
out  the  ideas  and  precepts  of  the  Knightly  Code.  Bush- 
ido said  that  nothing  happened,  that  the  soul,  heart,  head, 
and  body  had  to  be  trained.  Bushido  paid  attention  to 
all,  but  placed  the  greatest  accent  on  the  moral  and  intel- 
lectual work  of  making  life  effective.  Bushido  placed  the 
accent  on  services  that  could  not  be  measured  by  dollars 


200       LOYALTY  TO  THE  VISION  OF  THINGS  WELL  DONE 

and  cents;  it  revolted  against  the  standard  of  the  market 
place.  It  did  not  consider  money  values  as  true  values. 
Money  v^as  accursed,  it  was  unclean,  it  was  contemptible. 
The  services  of  such  teachers  of  the  mind,  heart,  and  body 
could  not  be  measured,  hence  they  were  honored  above 
the  other  classes  of  society. 

9 — Self-Control.  The  Samurai  had  to  be  polite  under 
all  circumstances,  under  circumstances  even  calling  for 
the  greatest  fortitude.  One  must  never  obtrude  one's 
p«ersonal  sorrows  even  on  a  friend.  Self-control  thus  be- 
came a  vital  requirement. 

Self-control  gave  the  power  by  which  to  obey  the  pre- 
cepts of  Bushido.  This  discipline  of  the  body,  mind  and 
soul  by  what  is  best — this  loyalty  to  the  vision  of  things 
well  done — this  concentration,  which  amounted  to  con- 
secration, of  one's  whole  power  of  mind,  body  and  soul 
to  one  end,  was  rooted  in  a  fanatical  self-control. 

10 — Suicide  and  Redress.  One  must  understand  the 
Bushido  philosophy  of  suicide.  Suicide,  when  one  beHeves 
it  to  be  the  most  glorious  gateway  to  the  best  thing, 
ceases  to  be  a  horrible  profanation  of  the  self.  Here  again 
appears  the  power  of  thought.  Bushido  held  that  hara- 
kiri  is  necessary  when  all  that  made  life  worth  living,  had 
been  lost.  Mere  bad  fortune  was  not  enough,  however, 
for  Bushido  taught  it  was  the  part  of  the  Samurai  to  bear 
and  live.  Bushido  called  for  the  redressing  of  wrongs 
done  to  one's  superiors  and  benefactors,  but  wrongs  done 
to  oneself  and  his  wife  and  children  were  to  be  forgiven. 

This  was  the  spirit  of  Bushido,  of  the  Samurai,  who 
never  failed  to  act  as  they  were,  the  aristocrats  of  Japan. 
They  impressed  their  code  on  the  lower  strata  of  their 
society;  they  made  a  nation  true  to  their  spirit;  and  they 
placed   their  country  in   the  forefront  of  the  family  of 


THE    RELIGION    OF    LOYALTY  20I 

nations  by  its  simple,  direct  philosophy  of  loyalty  to  the 
best  thing  to  be  done,  to  the  vision,  to  the  high  purpose 
from  which  no  philosophy  of  fat  luxury  or  idle  minds 
could  wean  to  incompetence.  To  such  a  people,  efficiency 
is  indeed  a  gospel  and  a  religion. 

Without  for  a  moment  suggesting  that  we  should 
exchange  our  American  for  their  Oriental  viewpoint,  yet, 
with  our  minds  open  to  the  world's  lessons,  we  must  admit 
that  there  is  something  wonderfully  efficient  in  the  Japan- 
ese singleness  of  purpose,  and  in  their  capacity  to  co-oper- 
ate for  the  common  good. 

As  Baron  Shibusawa  said : 

"You  must  put  your  whole  body's  spirit  into  .doing 
a  thing  and  must  not  make  light  of  even  the  smallest 
affair." 

Could  Mr.  Harrington  Emerson,  or  Ralph  Waldo  of 
"Character"  and  "Compensation,"  for  that  matter,  have 
put  it  better? 

The  Mystery  of  Mankind 

Herein  is  the  visioning  of  a  simple  fact,  that  the  won- 
derful things  of  life  do  not  exist  in  Africa,  or  in  the 
stars,  or  in  the  deeps  of  land  or  sea,  but  in  our  minds,  in 
our  daily  work — in  you,  my  friend,  who  are  more  wonder- 
ful to  me  than  the  mystery  of  radium.  Shall  we  not,  if 
we  gain  the  vision  of  that  one  fact,  have  gained  more  for 
ourselves  and  posterity  than  if  we  solve  the  problem  of 
the  transmutation  of  metals? 

Business  men,  scientists,  and  philosophers,  have  said 
that  a  plan  and  persistency  in  its  development  are  the 
greatest  of  the  attributes  of  success.  If,  as  Carlyle  says, 
"taking  infinite  pains  is  the  common  quality  of  genius," 
then  taking  pains  is  but  one  way  "to  fight  it  out  on  this 
line,  if  it  takes  all  summer," 


202       LOYALTY  TO  THE  VISION  OF  THINGS  WELL  DONE 

Whether  we  consider  the  homely  philosophy  of  Josh 
Billings,  who  illustrated  the  power  of  stick-to-it-iveness 
by  the  postage  stamp  which  he  said  stuck  to  a  letter  until 
it  got  there,  or  the  great  men  from  Alexander  to  Napo- 
leon, or  the  tragic  story  of  the  Christ  who  died  on  Golgotha; 
we  must  be  confirmed  in  our  belief  that  concentration  on  a 
purpose  is  the  very  motor  of  success. 

It  may  be  called  concentration,  unity  of  purpose, 
singleness  of  idea,  persistency,  yet,  after  all  is  said  and 
done,  for  our  purpose  it  is  best  summed  up  in  the  phrase, 
"Loyalty  to  the  Vision  of  Things  Well  Done."  Thus  we 
come  back  to  the  Japanese  religion  of  loyalty  to  which 
Lafcadio  Hearne  devotes  a  whole  chapter  of  luminous 
appreciation  in  his  "Japan."  Every  man  should  read  that 
chapter,  especially  at  this  day  when  so  many  are  breaking 
away  from  old  faiths  before  finding  new  ones. 

The  religion  of  loyalty  in  Japan  found  its  final  and 
modern  expression  in  the  almost  fanatical  desire  to  sufifer 
and  even  to  die  for  the  nation,  which  has  taken  the  place 
of  the  Lord  of  the  Clan  of  the  feudal  days. 

Changed  by  direction  into  new  and  larger  affairs,  this 
desire  in  their  army  and  navy,  became,  from  Admiral 
Togo  giving  thanks  to  the  Spirits  of  the  Departed  for  his 
victories,  to  the  newest  recruit  gasping  out  his  life  on  the 
hills  about  Port  Arthur,  the  religion  of  loyalty  to  the 
supremacy  of  Dai  Nippon. 

For  forty  years  this  loyalty  has  been  the  power  that 
remade  old  Japan  into  a  new  and  powerful  and  aggressive 
nation.  The  modern  world  knows  the  result,  those  who 
have  gone  deepest  know  the  well-spring  from  which  the 
spirit  flowed. 

Whether  or  not  Japan  has  learned  all  the  other  great 
laws  of  efficiency  remains  yet  to  be  demonstrated,  but  that 
she  has  learned  many  of  them  surprisingly  well  is  undenied. 


CHAPTER    XVII 

LOYALTY  TO  PLAN  AND  PURPOSE 

Our  doubts  are  traitors 

And  make  us  lose  the  good  we  oft  might  win 

By  fearing  to  attempt. — Shakespeare. 

There  is  no  greater  coward  then  I,  zvlien  I  am  draiving 
up  a  plan  of  campaign.  I  imagine  every  danger,  every 
disadvantage  that  can  be  conceived.  My  nervousness  is 
painful;  not  but  what  I  shozu  a  cool  face  to  those  wlio  are 
about  me.  I  am  like  a  woman  who  is  close  to  cliildbirth. 
Once  my  decision  is  made,  however,  I  forget  all,  except 
what  may  carry  it  through  to  success. — Napoleon. 

The  Ultimate  Objective 

In  an  individual  sense  let  us  turn  to  our  ideal,  our 
life-plan,  our  ambition,  be  that  what  it  may,  that  we  may 
fix  on  what  our  ultimate  objective  is  to  get  it  clearly  fixed 
in  our  minds.  In  this  scientific  era  we  have  discovered 
that  we  can  cultivate  tendencies,  that  we  can  give  direc- 
tion to  desire;  that  we  may  hinder  weeds  and  encourage 
fruitful  plants  in  our  Garden  of  Life. 

The  Motor  Power  of  Success 

But  even  after  we  have  determined  what  kind  of  at- 
tainable success  will  bring  most  satisfaction  to  us,  after  we 
have  defined  the  rules  of  the  game  that  shall  govern  its 
pursuit,  and  have  elaborated  this  information  into  the 
most  complete  plan  of  living,  it  is  possible  that  a  lack  of 
loyalty  to  the  spirit  as  well  as  to  the  letter  of  our  plan 
and  purpose  will  increase  the  cost  of  any  success  we  may 
attain,  even  if  it  does  not  render  success  impossible. 

203 


204 


LOYALTY  TO  THE  VISION  OF  THINGS  WELL  DONE 


Loyalty  to  plan  and  purpose  becomes  one  of  the  great 
vital  principles  of  efficient  living  and  doing.  Viewed  as 
the  motor  impulse,  the  power  to  drive,  loyalty  is  lifted 
out  of  the  realm  of  sentiment.  It  becomes  more  than 
the  mere  lip  service  of  enthusiasm,  for  the  completely 
loyal  man  works  with  all  the  resources  of  his  whole  soul, 
body,  mind,  heart,  and  will  for  the  achievement  of  the 
vision  which  has  been  given  him.  It  is  for  him,  the  poet 
said: 

"Let  a  man  contend  to  the  uttermost 
For  his  hfe's  set  prize, 
Be  it  what  it  will." 

The  history  of  individuals  and  peoples,  and  the  ob- 
servation of  current  success  in  the  market-place  inevit- 
ably show  us  that  the  worst  failures  are  among  those  who 
set  up  ideals,  not  of  what  they  should  do,  but  only  of  what 
they  think  is  expedient  to  do  today.  These  servers  of 
the  hour  forget  that  the  law  works  slowly,  but  it  works 
always.  They  forget  the  necessity  for  a  visioning  of  the 
long  life  purpose. 

The  True  Policy 

Let  us  stay  in  the  market-place.  Consider  the  "store 
policy"  so  often  heard  of  but  as  rarely  realized.  A  store 
policy  is  often  tacked  on  to  a  business  merely  as  an  inter- 
esting literary  interpretation  of  what  the  proprietor  thinks 
the  public  would  like  to  hear  or  as  a  selling  feature,  or, 
worse,  as  an  advertising  talking-point. 

That  attitude  towards  a  policy  and  the  policy  that  is 
part  of  such  an  attitude,  is  at  once  futile  and  hypocritical. 

The  true  policy  may  not  be  formulated  (although  it 
should  be)  but  the  public  will  formulate  the  policy,  for  it 
is  revealed  in  the  actual  life  of  the  business,  and  the 
principles  which  make  for  the  moulding  of  its  good  or  evil 


LOYALTY  TO  PLAN  AND  PURPOSE 


205 


service  to  the  community,  will  appear.  They  can't  be 
hidden,  although  they  may  be  misread  or  misinterpreted. 
The  public  is  becoming  more  concerned  with  policies, 
because  policies  are  the  measure  of  the  usefulness  of  the 
concern,  the  party,  the  creed,  the  art,  and  the  man  which 
they  govern,  and  his  usefulness  measures  his  right  to 
exist. 

Shall  we  not  be  better  satisfied  with  the  traders  in 
honest  goods,  the  practitioners  of  the  best  principles,  rather 
than  with  the  fakers  and  grafters  of  the  business  world? 
What,  after  all,  is  loyalty,  but  the  persistent,  ever-present 
desire  to  do  the  right  thing  in  the  right  way  at  all  times? 

What  Constitutes  Loyalty 

Loyalty  to  things  worth  while  is  made  up  of  three 
parts: 

First — A  definite  thing  worth  while  to  be  accom- 
plished. 

Second — An  abiding  assurance  that  our  utmost  satis- 
faction lies  in  the  accomplishment  of  this  definite  thing. 

Third — A  persistent  effort  for  its  accomplishment. 

The  first  is  the  cold  business  proposition  of  applying 
the  worth-while  standard  to  the  future  of  any  man,  busi- 
ness, or  creed,  and  has  sprung  from  tried  and  tested 
experience.  Then  comes  the  generation  of  that  inner 
faith  in  the  goal  which  fires  the  enthusiasm  and  the  do-or- 
die  spirit;  which  makes  an  Edison  work  sixty  hours  at  a 
stretch  for  the  achievement  of  a  result  to  be  desired;  which 
animates  a  Lieutenant  Scott  to  leave  an  imperishable 
record  of  an  immortal  hour;  which  makes  a  hero  of  a 
simple  priest  among  the  lepers  of  Hawaii ;  which  puts  mere 
achievement  above  any  golden  reward  in  the  lives  of 
thousands. 


2o6       LOYALTY  TO  THE  VISION  OF  THINGS  WELL  DONE 

Imagination  as  a  Success  Factor 

In  order  to  succeed  a  man  must  have  imagination. 
He  must  definitely  see  in  the  near  or  distant  future  the 
perfect  thing  which  he  wishes  to  obtain.  He  must  im- 
agine the  ultimate  results  of  his  endeavor.  I  believe  that 
if  we  divide  the  work  "imagination"  like  this:  "image- 
ination,"  the  making  of  images,  we  shall  get  a  clearer 
concept  of  what  imagination  is. 

Did  you  ever  try  to  image  the  important  thing  you  wish 
to  do?  Its  results?  Its  end?  Did  you  ever  realize  that 
the  man  who  has  hazy  ideas  of  what  he  is  going  to  do, 
puts  forth  the  same  hazy  efforts  trying  to  do  them? 

The  indefinite  idea  produces  the  indefinite  action. 

The  uncertain  man  produces  the  uncertain  results. 

Most  men  are  discontented,  but  zuhat  do  they  really  want 
to  do?  Find  them  an  object  to  work  for  and  they  grow 
contented  again.  We  fail,  someone  said,  because  we  do  not 
attempt  more.  We  need  loyalty  to  be  happy,  therefore,  we 
need  it  to  do  our  best  work.  The  man  who  works  for  a 
definite  result  works  at  greatest  pressure,  and  with  the 
greatest  speed. 

There  must  be  definite  thinking  about  definite  work, 
as  the  first  essential  to  a  realization  of  it.  After  definite 
thinking  about  our  work  comes  the  arrangement  of  our 
daily  lives  in  a  way  effectively  to  accomplish  that  thing. 

Can  we  sit  down  and  "image"  what  next  year  should 
produce  in  definite  satisfaction  for  ourselves,  our  work? 

The  Why  of  Failure 

It  is  the  curse  of  the  retail  merchant  in  this  country 
that  he  hasn't  a  definite  conception  of  the  kind  or  amount 
of  work  he  must  do  with  a  given  environment  of  neigh- 
borhood, prospective  customers,  equipment  of  employes, 
stock,    capital,     etc.,    in   order   to   get   a   certain   result. 


LOYALTY  TO  PLAN  AND  PURPOSE 


207 


Therefore,  he  does  not  keep  any  record  of  what  he  does. 
Every  time  a  retailer  fails  we  find  the  same  condition, — he 
didn't  know  what  he  was  doing  and  did  not  know  how 
badly  he  was  doing  it. 

A  careful  analysis  of  the  working  methods  of  over  six 
thousand  retailers,  showed  that  but  10  per  cent  of  them 
maintained  any  records  that  could  tell  them: 

First — What  had  they  in  stock 

Second — What  profit  they  were  actually  getting  on  any 
line  of  goods 

Third — What  the  expenditures  for  salemen,  advertis- 
ing, or  special  sales  were  actually  producing  in  profit  or 
loss 

Fourth — What  the  percentage  of  expense  was  upon 
any  distinct  body  or  class  of  sales  or  merchandise 

How  can  a  man  determine  what  he  must  do  until  he 
knows  definitely  what  he  or  others  like  him  can  do  or 
have  done?  Most  men  are  hopeless  because  they  are 
thoughtless.  Just  as  soon  as  a  man  knows  that  he  is 
working  in  harmony  with  the  eternal  laws  of  success,  just 
as  soon  as  he  is  convinced  that  the  thing  which  has  made 
others  successful  is  the  thing  he  can  do,  he  will  work  with 
greater  certainty,  and  without  the  paralyzing  dread  of 
that  unknown  preventable  thing  which  he  suspects  is 
lying  in  wait  along  every  road  he  travels.  Give  him  the 
vision  of  things  worth  while,  and  he  gains  confidence  in 
the  law  and  he  works  with  the  hope  of  doing  better. 

What  are  the  fundamental  laws  which  all  men  must 
respect? 

In  business,  the  Devil  and  Dame  Chance  are  blamed 
for  much  that  is  plainly  due  to  ignorance  of  the  rules  of 
the  game. 

These  rules  are  clearly  understood  by  the  captains  of 


2o8       LOYALTY  TO  THE  VISION  OF  THINGS  WELL  DONE 

success.  They  are  as  old  as  the  hills,  but  they  are  not 
appreciated  as  by  the  man  who  is  "born"  to  be  a  grocer, 
a  baker,  or  a  candlestick  maker.  Such  a  man  is  not  likely 
to  keep  the  rules  before  him,  because  he  is  not  convinced 
that  there  is  a  principle  of  knowledge  which  has  declared 
for  four  thousand  years  that  every  game  has  its  rules.  In 
consequence  such  a  man  has  no  faith  in  what  he  does  not 
know. 

Rules  for  Success  in  Retailing 

What,  for  instance,  does  certified  experience  tell  us  is 
necessary  for  success  in  a  retail  store  ? 

Bradstreet's  summary  for  1910,  shows  that  the  failures 
were  largely  due  to  lack  of  education  of  the  business  man; 
that  is,  the  failures  were  due  to  tendencies  inside  the  man 
himself.  These  men  by  actual  investigation,  failed  to  do 
all  or  most  of  these  things: 

First — Keeping,  as  an  ever-present  necessity  of  a 
healthy  business,  an  accurate  knowledge  of  credit,  both  in 
buying  and  selling. 

This  applies  to  the  individual  as  well  as  to  the  business 
man.  The  man  you  want  as  a  bookkeeper  is  the  one  who 
knows  he  wants  you  for  an  employer.  The  business  man 
is  tormented  by  men  seeking  selling  and  advertising 
positions  who  know  nothing  of  advertising  or  selling,  and 
who  are  not  willing  to  learn  at  their  own  expense. 

Stenographers  who  hold  positions  requiring  a  speed 
of  150  to  200  words  a  minute  in  handling  technical  infor- 
mation, found  how  to  hold  the  job  before  they  took  it. 
The  other  kind  work  half  the  year  and  spend  the  other 
half  hunting  another  job.  The  employe  who  seeks  a 
better  position  has  a  knowledge  of  where  he  wants  to 
work  and  he  can  tell  you  what  that  firm  pays  and  what 
they  expect  for  it. 


LOYALTY  TO  PLAN  AND  PURPOSE 


209 


It  is  only  within  the  past  two  years  that  credit  associa- 
tions have  given  thought  to  teaching  credit  principles, 
instead  of  catching  absconders. 

Second — Taking  precautions  not  to  over-buy,  by  hav- 
ing a  thorough  knowledge  of  both  buying  and  selling 
conditions  and  merchandise. 

The  successful  retailer  has  complete  information  on 
the  movement  of  every  portion  of  his  stock.  He  can  tell 
how  many  cans  of  tomatoes  he  sold  in  the  last  six  months. 
Therefore,  if  he  had  a  special  offering  in  tomatoes  he  could 
tell  how  many  cans  his  normal  trade  would  absorb  in  a 
given  time. 

Third — The  successful  merchant  makes  business  by 
energetic  and  intelligent  hustling;  he  never  waits  for  it  to 
grow. 

The  employe  who  is  waiting  for  something  that  is 
better  to  turn  up  is  a  liability.  He  sticks  at  an  old  job, 
regularly  every  sixth  month  applying  for  a  raise  of  wages, 
but  he  doesn't  spend  a  night  a  week  of  his  time  studying 
how  the  work  ahead  of  him  might  be  done  in  a  better 
way.     He  has  no  vision  and  of  course  no  loyalty  to  it. 

The  average  business  man  may  use  a  lot  of  energy  in 
soliciting  business,  but  he  does  not  study  intelligently 
the  conditions  of  his  territory  or  the  wants  of  his  pros- 
pective customer  in  order  that  he  may  effectively  apply 
the  energy. 

Fourth — The  successful  business  man  advertises  in 
some  form  or  other. 

Every  employe  should  keep  a  record  of  the  work  he  is 
doing  and  of  the  improvements  that  he  makes  and  let  his 
superior  know  what  he  is  doing;  the  employe  who  fails 
to  do  this  is  not  loyal  to  his  own  vision,  and  the  employer 
who  resents  such  information  is  not  worth  working  for. 


2IO       LOYALTY  TO  THE  VISION  OF  THINGS  WELL  DONE 

Every  business  man  should  consistently  and  persistently 
place  before  the  public,  his  claims  upon  the  public's  at- 
tention; he  is  not  loyal  to  the  opportunities  of  his  hour, 
no  matter  by  what  poor  thinking  he  may  fool  himself. 

Fifth — The  successful  business  man  has  always  placed 
the  accent  on  head  work  instead  of  hand  and  foot  work. 

A  special  investigation  of  nearly  five  hundred  retailers 
showed  that  but  thirty-one  of  them  had  any  system  of 
accounting  that  would  be  accepted  by  the  insurance  people 
as  prima  facie  evidence  in  the  adjustment  of  loss  in  the 
case  of  fire.  The  proprietors  of  most  stores  were  busy 
ten  to  twelve  hours  a  day  at  work  which  a  $3  to  $9  a  week 
clerk  could  do  just  as  well. 

Their  window  displays  were  changed  but  once  a 
month;  they  left  their  advertising  to  the  local  newspaper 
man;  and  in  but  few  cases  ever  had  even  a  visiting  book- 
keeper tell  them  what  the  real  conditions  of  their  business 
was.  Mere  busy-ness  isn't  business,  or  a  pig's  tail  would 
be  the  most  efficient  part  of  the  pig. 

Sixth — The  successful  man  tries  to  do  today  what  he 
might  do  tomorrow. 

This  is  self-evident  and  does  not  require  any  demon- 
tration. 

Seventh — The  successful  merchant  dictates  his  own 
terms  to  his  jobbers,  competitors,  and  customers;  he 
knows  and  knows  that  he  knows  what  is  best  for  his  busi- 
ness. 

A  retailer  recently  bought  a  thousand  pounds  of  candy 
at  eleven  cents  a  pound,  and  was  retailing  it  at  fifteen 
cents.  I  asked  him  how  much  he  thought  he  was  making 
on  it.  He  said  he  didn't  know  exactly,  but  that  the  job- 
ber had  told  him  that  everybody  was  selling  it  at  fifteen 
cents  and  he  thought  he  could  do  it  if  they  could. 


LOYALTY    TO    PLAN    AND    PURPOSE  2II 

Another  retailer  bought  shirts  at  a  dollar  apiece,  I 
asked  him  how  much  it  cost  him  to  do  business.  He  said 
"he  thought  25%  would  cover  it."  I  asked  him  what  he 
thought  he  was  making  on  the  shirts;  and  he  said  he  had 
marked  them  up  for  a  20%  profit.  It  turned  out  that  he 
figured  his  percentages  on  his  selling  price  and  made  his 
price  on  the  basis  of  his  costs.  He  didn't  know  and  could 
never  understand  why  it  was  he  always  made  less  than  he 
expected. 

The  employe  too  often  takes  the  stories  of  success 
told  by  other  employes  as  gospel  truth.  He  hasn't  any 
truth-founded  conception  of  what  the  real  value  of  his 
work  is  and  is  constantly  jumping  from  one  job  to  another 
in  the  vain  endeavor  to  get  a  remuneration  founded  on 
bis  wants  and  not  on  his  deserts.  From  the  ranks  of  such 
loose  thinkers  we  recruit  the  army  of  those  who  rabidly 
talk  about  the  war  betweeen  capital  and  labor. 

Eighth — The  successful  merchant  joins  in  co-operative 
efforts  with  others  for  the  elimination  of  trade  evils  and 
the  solution  of  trade  problems. 

In  the  expenditure  of  over  seven  hundred  millions  of 
dollars  for  advertising,  it  is  conservative  to  say  that  the 
American  advertiser  is  swindled  out  of  25  per  cent,  be- 
cause he  has  not  joined  in  any  co-operative  efifort  to  stamp 
out  the  special  edition,  program,  house  organ,  and  cata- 
log graft;  because  he  will  not  co-operate  to  get  accurate 
information  about  the  circulation  of  media,  and  definite 
information  about  the  classes  of  people  among  whom  a 
publication  circulates. 

It  is  only  through  the  work  of  credit  associations  that 
the  elimination  of  the  dead-beat  and  the  dishonest  cred- 
itor has  progressed  as  far  as  it  has.  Yet  many  adver- 
tisers hold  to  the  belief  that  they  have  a  special  knowl- 
edge of  result-producing  methods  which  is  not  warranted 


212       LOYALTY  TO  THE  VISION  OF  THINGS  WELL  DONE 

either  by  the  quality  of  their  advertising  success  or  the 
actual  conditions  of  their  business. 

Ninth — The  educated  merchant  overcomes  the  Ameri- 
can tendency  to  attempt  with  five  thousand  dollars  a 
business  that  requires  a  fifty-thousand-dollar  capital. 

The  employe  with  a  $i5-a-week  knowledge  of  sales- 
manship, realizing  his  condition,  goes  out  on  the  road  at 
the  price,  and  by  application  and  loyalty  to  a  desire  for 
a  more  perfect  knowledge,  which  is  a  part  of  his  plan, 
gradually  develops  into  a  salesman  getting  three  or  four, 
or  even  ten  times  that  amount.  But  the  employe  who 
has  no  conception  of  the  laws  of  success  and  believes  that 
the  world  can  be  blufifed,  puts  his  $i5-a-week  assortment 
of  knowledge  to  the  test  of  a  $50  job  and  fails. 

Tenth — The  successful  merchant  knows  that  he  must 
always  be  learning  new  things  and  must  keep  in  touch 
with  the  important  changes  in  business  methods. 

Probably  this  particular  feature  is  most  prevalent  in 
territories  where  old  business  methods  have  been  permit- 
ted to  solidify  into  sacred  tradition.  A  retailer  of  Newton 
Centre,  Massachusetts,  when  asked  why  it  was  that  his 
store  had  grown  in  fourteen  months  from  a  business  of 
$37,000  to  $140,000  a  year,  answered  simply:  "I  decided 
that  I  would  govern  my  business  from  positive  knowledge 
rather  than  from  accepted  customs." 

What  Jones  Thought  Over 

While  on  a  motor  trip  in  northern  Indiana,  I  stepped 
into  a  village  store.  As  I  stood  telephoning  to  the  next 
town,  the  caption  on  a  card  nailed  above  a  desk  caught 
my  eye.    It  read: 

"Think  These  Things  Over,  JonesT 


LOYALTY  TO  PLAN  AND  PURPOSE 


213 


The  rest  was  so  good  that  I  copied  it: 

I — Trusted  the  other  fellow  too  much,  or  has  he  me? 
2 — Was  that  drummer  a  better  seller  than  I  was  a 

buyer? 
3 — How  much  of  the  money  I  took  in  today  is  mine? 
4 — Am  I  getting  so  lazy  that  I  don't  do  anything  but 

just  worry  about  how  hard  I'm  working? 
5 — Have  I  any  good  reasons  for  buying  more  goods? 
6 — What  am  I  worth? 

7 — What  about  the  goods  on  the  top  shelf? 
8 — Any  notes  coming  due  next  week? 

Some  of  the  questions  were  written  in  red  ink,  others 
in  black,  and  one  in  pencil;  apparently  they  had  been  put 
down  from  time  to  time,  as  reminders  of  danger  marks 
that  Jones  thought  he  had  discovered  in  the  day's 
business. 

I  am  sorry  I  was  not  able  to  interview  that  proprietor, 
for  he  was  out  at  the  time  of  my  call.  That  little  card 
had  all  the  earmarks  of  the  work  of  one  of  Commerce's 
loyal  soldiers. 

He  was  loyal  to  the  principle  that  things  didn't  hap- 
pen, to  the  vision  of  things  well  done,  and  within  the 
range  of  his  experience  he  was  working  out  a  plan  and 
purpose  to  guide  his  thought  and  action.  He  was  foster- 
ing his  tendencies  to  careful  foresight  and  self-examina- 
tion. 

Bradstreet's  summary  of  the  failures  of  the  world  is 
in  indictment  against  those  who  were  unable  to  keep 
faith  with,  to  be  loyal  to,  the  ten  parts  of  the  creed  of 
the  successful  merchant.  Any  man  who  is  loyally  honest 
with  himself,  can  check  himself  up  against  these  things. 
He  can  determine  whether  he  is  meeting  the  conditions 
of  the  game.     He  should  look  each  foregoing  statement 


214 


LOYALTY  TO  THE  VISION  OF  THINGS  WELL  DONE 


and  comparison  clearly  in  the  face,  and  ask  himself,  "Does 
that  mean  me?"  Don't  flinch,  my  friend;  don't  fumble, 
you  banker,  merchant  with  a  million;  don't  dodge  it,  you 
near-success;  you  can't  ignore  it,  you  guesser  at  the 
world's  riddle. 


CHAPTER    XVIII 

LOYALTY  TO  IDEALS 

The  vision  of  things  to  be  done  may  come  a  long  time 
before  the  way  of  doing  them  appears  clear,  but  woe  to 
him  who  distrusts  the  vision. — Jenkins  Lloyd  Jones. 

He  stands  within  the  shadozv  of  the  night, 

But  looks  beyond  it  toward  the  coming  light; 

And  sees,  far  off,  with  tranced,  prophetic  eyes, 

The  consummation  of  the  centuries. — John  E.  Dalson. 

The  Point  of  View 

The  real  man  is  loyal  to  the  truth  because  he  wants 
the  truth  and  nothing  but  the  truth,  no  matter  how  much 
it  hurts  him  or  the  other  man. 

If  a  business  man  is  suffering  from  cranial  enlarge- 
ment, he  can't  check  up.  It  is  utterly  impossible  for  a 
man  who  is  suffering  from  softening  of  the  wits  to  see 
failure  when  he  looks  in  the  mirror.  As  Mencius  said: 
"When  men's  fowls  and  dogs  are  lost,  they  know  how  to 
seek  for  them  again,  but  they  lose  their  mind  and  do  not 
know  how  to  seek  for  it."  Like  the  crazy  man  who 
thinks  everybody  else  in  the  world  is  crazy,  so  the  man 
who  is  satisfied  with  himself,  whose  "business  is  differ- 
ent," is  satisfied  that  all  the  rest  of  the  world  is  wrong, 
running  after  false  gods,  doing  the  inef^cient  thing. 

The  House  Policy 

In  every  efficient  management  there  is,  somewhere, 
in  an  understandable  form,  a  statement  of  "what  the  house 
stands  for,"  a  definition  of  its  policy,  a  reflection  of  the 
individuality  which  marks  it  oft'  as  different  from  other 
houses. 

215 


2i6       LOYALTY  TO  THE  VISION  OF  THINGS  WELL  DONE 

It  is  obvious  that  before  we  can  be  loyal  to  a  house 
and  its  future,  before  we  can  fight  most  efficiently  for  its 
success,  we  must  know  what  it  is,  what  it  wants  done, 
what  it  will  not  do,  and  what  it  will  do,  with  respect  to 
the  many  questions  calling  for  our  decision. 

Again,  human  nature  needs  definition  of  purpose  in 
its  work  for  another  as  well  as  for  itself;  uncertainty  para- 
lyzes effort.  The  religious  creeds,  the  mottoes  we  hang 
on  our  walls,  the  "creeds"  for  salesmen,  business  mana- 
gers, and  advertising  men,  show  by  their  popularity 
human  nature's  reaching  out  for  definitions  of  what  to 
do  and  what  to  think. 

By  following  these  tendencies  of  action  we  catch  the 
drift  of  human  nature,  and  are  coming  to  a  knowledge  of 
what  manner  of  being  man  is. 

The  Spirit  of  the  Rules 

Many,  yes,  I  may  say  most,  businesses  suffer  from  an 
entire  lack  of  definite  policy  presented  in  understandable 
form  either  to  customers  or  employes.  Ask  any  of  your 
employes  to  state  what  they  believe  to  be  the  house's 
policy  relative  to  any  of  a  dozen  different  things  and  you 
will  be  amazed  at  the  variation  of  misinformation  you  get, 
and  you  will  probably  be  mystified  at  the  interpretation 
of  the  spirit  of  the  rules.  Is  it  not  well  for  you  to  realize 
that  these  employes  are  coming  in  contact  with  the  pub- 
lic every  day  of  the  week?  They  don't  know  what  your 
house  stands  for  in  relation  to  that  public. 

Take  "your-money-back-if-not-satisfied"  proposition. 
A  store  widely  advertises  this  as  a  house  policy.  It  is  on 
all  the  letterheads,  in  all  the  newspaper  and  circular  ad- 
vertising, and  even  on  the  statements  and  wrapping 
paper — and  it  is  all  honest  and  means  just  what  it  says. 
An  editor  of  a  trade  journal  talking  about  this  told  me: 


LOYALTY    TO    IDEALS  21/ 

"I  have  in  mind  the  shoe  department  in  a  certain 
southwestern  store.  A  woman  returned  with  a  pair 
of  shoes  that  had  not  felt  as  comfortable  when  she 
tried  them  on  at  home  as  she  fancied  they  did  in  the 
store.  She  wanted  to  know  if  she  could  get  her  money 
back  on  them. 

"The  clerk  was  anxious  to  make  a  good  sales 
record,  so  he  said: 

"  'We  will  arrange  that  if  you  buy  another  pair  of 
shoes  here.* 

"The  woman  turned  on  her  heel,  looked  up  the 
proprietor  and  made  a  few  uncomplimentary  remarks 
about  the  store  that  made  promises  and  did  not  keep 
them. 

"That  proprietor  spent  the  better  part  of  a  half 
hour  trying  to  convince  her  he  meant  just  what  he  ad- 
vertised, and  when  he  had  convinced  her  by  argument 
(at  least  pacified  her  to  some  extent)  he  proved  it  by 
going  to  the  cash  drawer  and  getting  the  money. 
Restored  to  a  friendly  feeling  for  the  house,  she  allowed 
the  proprietor  to  fit  her  foot  and  remained  a  satisfied 
customer  of  the  house. 

"Incidentally  the  clerk  learned  something  he  never 
forgot  about  interpreting  the  policy  of  the  house,  ac- 
cording to  its  spirit. 

"Had  this  been  one  of  those  stores  which  adver- 
tise a  liberal  store  policy  with  little  intention  of  carry- 
ing it  through,  there  would  have  been  one  more  knocker 
and  one  less  booster  for  the  store  in  that  town. 

"Of  course  there  is  the  other  extreme.  An  'easy' 
clerk  may  let  some  unprincipled  customer  take  a  suit 
or  a  wrap,  and  after  wearing  it  to  some  social  func- 
tion return  it  and  get  her  money  back.  But  such 
clerks  are  usually  of  short  term  service  in  any  aggres- 
sive and  wide-awake  store." 

What  is  a  House  Policy  ? 

What  is  the  policy  of  a  house? 

It  is  the  plan  on  which  it  is  founded;  the  purpose  that 
it  has  in  being  in  business;  it  is  the  statement  of  what  it 
will  do  to  get  and  to  keep  business;  it  is  the  manner  in 
which  it  treats  its  customers  relative  to  those  things 


2i8       LOYALTY  TO  THE  VISION  OF  THINGS  WELL  DONE 

which  are  not  a  matter  of  price  or  qiiaHty,  but  are  mat- 
ters of  service. 

Why  is  it  necessary  to  reduce  it  to  a  definite  state- 
ment? 

The  minds  of  the  mass  of  men  are  like  a  slow  photo- 
graphic plate.  Any  business  must  be  kept  before  this 
mind  a  long  time,  must  retain  its  outlines  much  the  same 
all  the  time,  must  not  change  its  character,  or  the  picture 
impressed  on  that  mind  will  lack  definition  of  outline. 
The  business  of  the  advertiser,  for  instance,  that  appears 
in  the  prints  today  and  is  gone  tomorrow  and  that,  so 
to  speak,  flashes  before  the  social  eye  in  the  turning  of 
a  leaf,  makes  no  impression  on  public  consciousness. 

Here  are  ten,  or  ten  thousand  employes  who  are  lack- 
ing in  that  information  which  gives  them  a  clean-cut  con- 
ception of  what  the  business  for  which  they  work  stands 
for,  what  its  policy  is.  For  instance,  a  retail  store  has 
one  price  to  all  and  sticks  to  it.  It  delivers  free  of  charge. 
It  returns  the  money  if  the  goods  are  not  satisfactory. 
It  guarantees  quality  to  be  up  to  the  marks  on  the  pack- 
age. It  guarantees  that  its  description  of  goods  in  any 
advertisement  is  absolutely  correct  in  letter  and  spirit. 
It  insists  that  its  employes  shall  be  courteous,  considerate, 
and  informing. 

Now  suppose  that  an  employe  fresh  from  some  store 
where  these  things  did  not  obtain,  sold  a  blanket  adver- 
tised as  "a  yard  wide,"  when  it  was  but  thirty-two  inches; 
the  customer  brought  it  back,  and  the  clerk,  reared  under 
different  influences,  blandly  told  the  customer  that  "a 
yard  wide  is  simply  a  trade  term." 

Has  the  clerk  adopted  an  attitude  that  reflects  his 
store  policy? 

Every  business  house  has  a  policy;  however  indefinitely 
stated  it  may  be,  it  is  there.  It  is  self-evident  that  it  should 


LOYALTY    TO    IDEALS 


219 


be  clearly  defined  to  all  those  who  represent  it,  at  least, 
and  better  yet,  if  it  is  persistently  stated  in  the  ways  by 
which  the  public  shall  come  to  understand  it. 

The  Wanatnaker  Store  Policy 

Let  me  refer,  for  a  concrete  example,  as  I  did  in  the 
last  chapter  to  John  Wanamaker,  because  he  has  so  defi- 
nitely formulated  his  store  policies  that  we  do  not  have 
to  deduce  them  from  a  mass  of  unrelated  actions.  His 
business  has  been  built  on  loyalty  to  a  clean-cut  ideal, 
fixed  for  some  fifty  years.  Recently  he  re-stated  his  store 
policies  as  follows:* 

"First — As  to  the  Public : 

"(a) — A  service  exactly  opposite  to  the  ancient  custom 
that  the  customer  must  look  out  for  himself. 

"(b) — A  kind  of  storekeeping  absolutely  new  in  its 
ensuring  protection  from  wrong  statements, 
printed  or  spoken,  ignorant  or  willful,  in  refer- 
erence  to  origins  of  merchandise,  their  quali- 
ties, and  actual  values. 

"(c) — An  elimination  of  so-called  privileges  to  custom- 
ers, as  privileges  when  they  border  on  humilia- 
tions, because  hospitality  as  well  as  the  return 
of  goods  for  refunds  or  reclamations  are  rights 
that  spenders  of  money  are  entitled  to  as  rights, 
not  as  favors. 

"(d) — Recognizing  and  practicing  the  manifest,  though 
unwritten  law,  that  customers  are  entitled  under 
our  system  to  the  maximum  of  satisfaction  at 
the  minimum  of  cost,  for  the  reason  that  they 
pay  the  usual  and  ordinary  expenses  of  store- 
keeping,  which  are  always  included  in  the  price 
of  merchandise. 

"(e) — Securing  to  each  individual  dealing  with  us  to  the 
last  analysis,  exactitude  of  intelligent  service 
and  full  value  for  value  received  in  every  trans- 
action. 


'The  Golden  Book  of  the  Wanamaker  Stores." 


220       LOYALTY  TO  THE  VISION  OF  THINGS  WELL  DONE 

"Second — As  to  the  Working  People : 

"(a) — An  admission  as  a  fundamental  principle  that 
workers  are  entitled  to  further  considerations 
beyond  legal  wages,  covering  their  welfare  and 
their  education. 

"(b) — To  see  that  employes  are  not  over-reached  or 
over-looked,  and  making  it  possible  that  there 
shall  be  nothing  between  a  man  and  success,  but 
himself. 

"(c) — To  provide  education  to  employes  as  the  only 
means  of  doing  what  legislation  or  combination 
cannot  do,  the  improvement  of  their  earning 
capacity,  labor,  and  capital,  adding  to  the  sum 
of  human  happiness. 

"(d) — That  the  education  provided  shall  not  include  the 
dead  languages  or  other  unuseful  studies  to  the 
detriment  of  the  practical  and  technical  every- 
day-work studies  that  aid  in  making  a  better 
living. 

"(e) — That  the  education  must  at  the  same  time  go 
towards  the  development  of  character  in  order 
to  enable  the  man  to  better  engineer  his  life  to 
higher  living  and  greater  happiness,  as  well  as 
to  earn  his  daily  bread. 

"(f) — To  keep  foremost  the  observance  of  the  spirit  as 
well  as  the  letter  of  laws  that  govern  our  busi- 
ness transactions  and  relations  to  each  other. 

"(g) — A  fixed  plan  of  retirement  of  employes  on  retired 
pay  to  give  rest  and  recreation  to  the  old  and 
chances  for  promotion  to  the  younger  people. 

"(h) — A  Court  of  Appeal,  chosen  by  the  employes,  to 
hear  and  adjust  impartially  any  complaint  the 
employes  desire  to  lay  before  such  a  court  for 
reference. 

The  Cardinal  Points  of  the  Business 

"(i) — The  assembling  and  distribution  of  the  best  products 
of  the  world  upon  the  most  intelligent  and  eco- 
nomical basis. 

"(2) — The  ablest  management,  most  thorough  accuracy  of 
service,  and,  because  of  the  fairest  treatment  of 
all  the  workers,  from  the  humblest  to  the  highest, 
the  finest  comradeship. 


LOYALTY    TO    IDEALS  221 

"(3) — The  life  and  soul  of  the  business  to  its  honor. 
"(4) — That  the  aim   and   purpose  of   the  business   must 

always  be,  that  as  the  business  rises  it  must  lift 

every  worker  with  it. 
"  'Each  day's  sailing  directions  for  the  ship,  captain 
and  crew  to  read  and  follow  every  day.' " 

The  Wanamaker  Idea 

"The  foregoing  states  simply  and  briefly  the  Wana- 
maker Idea.  It  is  not  a  mere  sentiment.  It  is  the  mer- 
cantile law  in  operation  towards  the  people  within  and 
without  our  buildings.  It  requires  the  merchant  to  live 
and  work  by  standards  as  high  as  the  clergyman,  the 
physician,  and  the  college  professor.  It  makes  way  for 
the  elevation,  contentment  and  prosperity  of  employes 
willing  to  make  the  effort  to  help  themselves.  The  Founder 
has  framed  it  in  words  that  it  may  form  the  compass  and 
chart  for  all  who  come  after  him. 

"Let  nothing  sag  or  fall.  Hold  fast  all  we  have 
wrought  into  the  system,  and  add  to  it  out  of  the  ever- 
ripening  experience,  and  by  all  means  see  to  it  that  no  one 
fails  to  keep  step  in  the  march  of  progress.  Inflexibly  it 
must  be — step  on,  or  step  out. 

"All  can  help,  but  none  shall  hinder. 

"Keep  the  ship  on  its  keel,  and  whatever  else  is  left 
undone,  see  that  it  keeps  moving  in  the  channels  here 
staked  out." 

Here  is  at  once  a  plan  and  a  purpose,  through  which 
we  catch  a  vision  of  things  well  done,  to  enlist  the  sup- 
port of  all  those  within  and  without  the  Wanamaker 
business. 

Can  anyone  say  that  such  a  clear  visioning  in  a  plain 
statement  does  not  make  for  efficiency  in  store  organiza- 
tion, because  it  has  taught  the  discipline  that  made  the 
good  soldier;  i.  e.,  the  employe  who  understands  what  is 
wanted  and  does  it? 

How  shall  we  judge  the  efficiency  with  which  this 
plan  and  purpose  may  be  accomplished?  By  the  stand- 
ards which  shall  be  extracted  out  of  the  experience  of  the 


222       LOYALTY  TO  THE  VISION  OF  THINGS  WELL  DONE 

whole  world.  The  method  of  making  such  extraction  will 
be  considered  separately. 

He  is  not  loyal  who  does  not  hesitate — it  is  instinct 
only  that  keeps  the  ant  true  to  his  line  of  march — but  he 
is  loyal  who,  feeling  the  chill  of  Doubt,  yet  presses  on 
towards  the  vision  his  soul  has  set  in  the  golden  glow 
of  its  tomorrow. 

The  spirit  of  loyalty  is  like  that  virtue  which  Plato 
mentions  in  his  "Value  of  Virtue"  which  makes  the  man 
who  is  truly  loyal  love  the  thing  for  its  inner  value.  The 
loyal  man  shows  that  he  is  interested  more  in  doing  the 
thing  for  itself  than  for  the  effect  it  may  have  on  another. 
His  aim,  therefore,  is  to  accomplish  the  thing  worth 
while,  and  he  is  satisfied  when  he  has  done  it  well  when 
measured  by  the  high  standards  he  has  set  himself. 

Any  business  man  may  have  this  high  purpose.  Such 
purpose  must  always  be  the  soul  of  that  Service  which 
it  is  so  easy  to  talk  about  but  so  difficult  to  give  truly. 

The  Man  Motive 

What  the  policy  is  to  a  house  the  motive  is  to  a  man. 
In  fixing  on  our  plans  and  purposes,  let  us  go  deep  into 
motives  so  that  we  may  know  exactly  what  we  want  to 
do  and  that  it  may  be  worthy  of  a  life  work.  If  we  don't 
we  shall  soon  tire  and  turn  to  a  new  thing. 

It  is  the  tiring  and  changing  that  wastes  so  much  of 
our  time  and  energy,  two  things  we  cannot  waste  unless  we 
are  prepared  to  want. 

The  thing  on  which  you  spend  your  leisure  time  is 
generally  the  thing  that  is  making  the  most  demands 
upon  your  real  thought,  time,  energy,  and  money.  Do 
you  really  play  golf  because  you  like  the  game,  or  be- 
cause it  brings  you  in  contact  with  people  whom  you 
would  like  to  know,  or  whom  you  think  it  is  profitable 


LOYALTY    TO    IDEALS 


223 


to  know?    Do  you  really  get  a  lot  of  fun  out  of  the  game, 
or  only  out  of  the  people  whom  you  meet? 

Get  at  the  vital  desire  back  of  any  effort.  Are  you 
really  interested  in  your  work  of  advertising?  Do  you 
really  believe  that  you  have  any  particular  aptitude  for 
it?  Perhaps  you  have  gone  into  advertising  only  because 
you  think  you  can  make  your  money  easier  at  that  than 
you  can  at  anything  else?  Do  you  think  advertising  when 
you're  out  of  your  ofSce? 

Do  you  study  salesmanship  in  your  own  time?  Do  you 
easily  "put  your  business  behind  you,"  as  you  express  it? 
Is  an  article  on  salesmanship  of  any  vital  interest  to  you 
when  you  have  a  chance  for  a  few  hours  to  yourself?  Are 
you  really  interested  in  the  business  you  are  doing?  Do 
you  like  to  meet  the  other  fellows  who  are  making  good 
in  your  line?  Do  you  talk  shop  when  you  do?  Do  you 
spend  your  extra  money  for  books,  and  papers,  which 
help  you  to  know  more  about  your  work?  In  other  words, 
are  you  loyal  to  the  spirit  of  exclusiveness  which  makes  a 
pursuit  a  dominant  interest  or  are  you  just  making  a 
living  at  it? 

I  am  suspicious  of  the  man  "who  can  leave  business 
behind  him" ;  who  is  not  always  interested  in  anything 
that  is  said,  or  done,  or  thought  about  the  thing  to  which 
he  has  given  his  productive  energies  and  his  time. 

Looking  Upward 

A  great  authority,  a  master  gardener  of  tendencies, 
once  suggested  that  a  man  ask  himself:  "What  kind  of 
people  do  I  like?  Do  I  like  people  who  have  more  brains 
than  I?  If  so,  I  am  making  for  my  own  efficiency,  be- 
cause no  man  likes  people  who  have  more  brains,  more 
ability,  more  capacity,  who  know  more  than  he,  who  is 
not  on  the  right  road  to  developing  more  brains,  ability 


224 


LOYALTY  TO  THE  VISION  OF  THINGS  WELL  DONE 


and  knowledge.  The  man  who  deUberately  selects  brain- 
less people,  because  they  may  render  homage  to  him,  is 
neither  well  educated  nor  developing." 

Let  a  man  ask  himself  if  he  is  really  industrious  from 
a  desire  to  do  the  things  that  he  knows  are  worth  while, 
or  is  he  industrious  simply  to  impress  somebody,  whom 
he  thinks  it  will  pay  to  impress?  Is  he  sober  in  the  higher 
sense  of  the  word — is  he  reasonable  in  the  things  that 
he  does? 

Does  he  possess  any  self-respect?  Can  he  forget  him- 
self for  a  single  moment  in  a  desire  to  do  something  for 
somebody  else?  Or,  does  he  do  things  only  for  people 
from  the  meanest  of  motives,  that  he  may  impress  those 
people  with  a  sense  of  obligation,  with  the  idea  that  they 
may  be  of  service  to  him?  Does  he  have  a  regard  for 
appearances  from  a  high  sense  of  wanting  to  do  the  thing 
that  will  show  him  the  best  light?  Is  he  polite?  Is  he 
honest?  Is  he  punctual?  Is  he  active?  Is  he  reticent? 
Let  him  thus  go  down  into  the  very  well-springs  of  his 
own  character  and  find  out  just  what  is  there. 

All  these  tendencies,  and  all  these  questions,  all  these 
motor  impulses,  etc.,  which  may  be  weak  in  themselves, 
and,  taken  apart,  may  not  be  the  guiding  influence  that 
makes  a  man  succeed  or  fail,  are  a  good  deal  like  the  sticks 
in  the  fable,  which,  bound  together  into  a  human  per- 
sonality, become  the  strong  motor  impulses  and  charac- 
teristics that  lie  at  the  root  of  success  or  failure. 

Loyalty  to  Self 

I  wish  every  man  might  read  the  Autobiography  of 
Benjamin  Franklin,  particularly  that  part  mentioned  in 
a  previous  chapter.  It  is  one  of  the  most  wonderful  books 
ever  written.  It  demonstrates  the  great  power  of  loyalty 
to  truth;  {.  e.,  the  absolute  necessity  for  every  one  to  have 


LOYALTY    TO    IDEALS  22$ 

a  definite  conception  of  what  he  wants  to  do,  to  think 
out  how  it  can  best  be  done  and  what  its  ultimate  effects 
will  be  when  it  is  realized. 

It   also   teaches  another  lesson — to  loyally  eradicate 
those  things  that  breed  friction,  to  get  rid  of  those  quali- 
ties in  our  mental  and  moral  make-up  which  interfere  with  • 
the  harmonious  development  of  the  entire  man  and  with 
the  pursuit  of  the  thing  that  we  want  to  do. 

These  principles  apply  to  business  as  well  as  to  in- 
dividuals. 

As  another  has  said,  "Self-knowledge,  along  with  self- 
reverence  and  self-control,  has  received  from  the  days  of 
the  Greek  oracles  down  to  Tennyson,  almost  ofificial  recog- 
nition as  a  source  of  power,  but  by  a  curious  anomaly  the 
self-examination  on  which  it  is  founded  and  which  neces- 
sarily includes  some  introspection,  is  commonly  viewed 
with  disfavor  and  suspicion.  It  is  supposed  to  produce 
melancholy,  irresolution,  and  a  sense  of  impotence.  This 
is  probably  due  to  the  fact  that  there  is  a  greater  tendency 
to  introspection  in  times  of  depression  and  consequently 
it  often  takes  on  rather  sombre  colors. 

"People,  when  in  good  spirits,  take  them  for  granted 
as  a  part  of  the  beneficial  ordering  of  the  world;  they 
do  not  analyze  conditions  which  have  produced  their 
happiness.  Those  who  are  sad  or  discontented,  on  the 
other  hand,  especially  when  there  is  no  obvious  reason 
for  the  sadness  and  discontent,  often  begin  to  question  the 
value  of  their  own  personality,  and  to  examine  it  rather 
critically  and  in  a  fault-finding  humor." 

We  should  look  within  ourselves.  A  man  may  have 
the  very  best  time  in  the  world  when  he  looks  inside  and 
thus  comes  to  know  himself,  for  he  may  find  there  a  new 
friend,  the  loyalty  and  companionship  and  sympathy  of 
whom  he  may  not  doubt.     It  is  not  necessarv  for  him  to 


226       LOYALTY  TO  THE  VISION  OF  THINGS  WELL  DONE 

be  an  egotist  in  order  to  do  this.  He  must  be  overcome 
with  the  fundamental  bigness  of  the  fact  that  he  is  a 
human  being  and  that  God  saved  him  from  being  a  pig. 
He  may  believe  in  luck,  or  in  fortune,  or  in  the  voice 
that  troubled  Lincoln,  or  the  star  that  guided  Napoleon, 
or  the  luck  that  waited  upon  A.  T.  Stewart,  but  most  of 
all  he  must  be  loyal  to  that  which  makes  him  Peter  Pen- 
wiper, or  Josiah  Golddust,  else,  what  is  the  satisfaction  in 
being  either? 

Loyalty  to  the  Vision 

To  be  loyal  to  one's  conceptions,  loves,  friendships,  or 
visions  in  this  day  of  change,  appears  to  some  minds  to 
be  uncouth,  vulgar,  impractical,  and  old-fashioned.  The 
man  who  thinks  his  own  thoughts  and  painfully  disen- 
tangles truth  from  the  web  of  falsity  and  chance,  who 
can  test  his  thoughts  and  acts  in  the  acid  bath  of  useful- 
ness, and  whose  mind  is  open  to  inspiration  from  all 
sources,  will,  when  he  has  found  the  ground  of  surety, 
confidence  and  truth,  be  armed  with  all  the  powers  of  his 
mind,  heart,  strength  and  will,  and  go  forth  cheerfully 
to  do  battle  for  the  thing  he  sees  to  be  done,  and  victory 
is  worth  the  battle. 

"These  things,"  said  ex-Governor  Black  of  New  York, 
"I  believe,  should  be  kept  in  mind.  Large  enterprises 
must  be  built  upon  large,  deliberate  planning.  Judgment 
is  safer  than  emotion.  It  does  not  create  half  the  en- 
thusiasm, but  it  stays  longer.  Nature  works  slowly,  but 
she  never  tires  and  her  rules  change  not.  That  is  why 
through  all  creation  and  on  every  side,  the  marvels  of  her 
handiwork,  compared  with  which  the  puny  works  of  man 
are  as  candles  to  the  sun.  have  in  all  ages  bowed  the  human 
head  in  wonder  and  adoration. 

"On  every  rock,  and  river,  and  tree  is  written  the  pre- 
cept, 'Let  your  head  command,  and  your  hand  obey.' 
Strength  without  wisdom  is  like  a  hurricane  speeding  un- 
guided  across  the  plains  and  piling  in  its  awful  havoc  alike 


LOYALTY    TO    IDEALS  227 

the  empty  house  and  the  crowded  temple.  All  things 
should  be  controlled  by  plan  and  method,  for  it  is  true 
now  as  it  was  of  old,  that  when  the  floods  come  and  the 
rains  descend,  no  house  will  stand  unless  founded  on  a 
rock. 

"Deeds  that  are  the  creation  of  excitement  are  seldom 
brave.  When  the  blood  is  hot  it  is  easy  to  be  bold. 
When  excitement  rages,  patriots  swarm  and  multiply,  but 
when  the  bullets  dwindle,  and  the  flag  is  laid  away,  and  in 
its  place  a  new  one  floats  against  the  sky,  the  vast  majority 
of  men  pay  little  heed  to  the  important  questions  so  vital 
to  the  country's  good. 

"No  man  is  a  true  patriot  who  is  not  a  patriot  always. 
His  value  of  any  statute  depends  upon  his  comprehension. 
If  he  does  not  really  understand,  he  is  not  really  one.  An 
act  performed  unconsciously  is  no  higher  than  a  mistake. 
He  is  not  brave  who  faces  danger  without  fear — brutes  do 
that.  But  he  alone  is  brave  who,  feeling  in  his  veins  the 
tremor  of  conscious  fear,  yet  pushes  to  the  front." 

Of.  such  courageous  stuff  is  the  man  made,  no  matter 
from  what  part  of  the  earth  he  may  spring,  who  remains 
true  to  the  vision  of  things  well  done. 

He  wins  no  matter  what  the  cost  of  his  victory. 


PART  VI 


A  PAPER  OF  BRASS  TACKS 

A  standard  under  modern  scientific  management  is 
simply  a  carefully  thought  out  method  of  performing  a 
function,  or  carefully  dratvn  specifications  covering  an  im- 
plement or  some  article  of  stores  or  of  product. 

— Morris  Llewellyn  Cooke. 


CHAPTER    XIX 

THE  N.  C.  R.  SCHOOL 

When  I  want  to  discover  something,  I  begin  by  reading 
up  everything  that  has  been  done  along  that  line  in  the 
past.  I  see  what  has  been  accomplished  at  great  labor  and 
expense  iti  the  past.  I  gather  the  data  of  many  thousands 
of  experiments  as  a  starting  point,  and  then  I  make 
thousands  more. — Thomas  A.  Edison. 

The  School  Record 

In  1904  Hugh  Chalmers,  then  general  manager  of  the 
National  Cash  Register  Company,  said  in  a  public  address 
that  sixty-three  per  cent  of  the  men  who  had  taken  the  course 
of  instruction  in  the  N.  C.  R.  School  of  Salesmanship,  had 
succeeded  as  salesmen.  This  training  school  was  started  on 
the  4th  of  April,  1894,  and  graduated  in  June  of  that  year 
its  first  class  of  thirty-seven  men. 

During  the  next  ten  years,  forty-nine  regular  and  eight 
post-graduate  classes  were  graduated,  with  an  aggregate 
membership  of  one  thousand  and  eighty-nine.  The  majority 
of  these  men  successfully  accomplished  the  selling  task  set 
them  by  the  company;  their  efficiency  was  measured — not 
by  vague,  uncertain,  and  varying  impressions  made  upon 
the  management  nor  by  the  fluctuating  records  of  different 
sales  managers,  but  by  scientifically  determined  standards 
of  selling  efficiency,  based  upon  personal  and  territorial 
quotas  of  sales  set  by  the  company. 

The  Basal  Principle 

This  school  of  training  covered  in  its  work  a  much  wider 
range  than  might  first  appear  to  those  unfamiliar  with  the 

231 


232 


A  PAPER  OF  BRASS  TACKS 


methods  of  modern  sales-efficiency  engineers.  It  got  down 
to  brass  tacks.  The  reasons  for  its  installation  have  often 
been  told,  but  the  scientific  laws  governing  its  organization 
and  methods  of  instruction  are  not  generally  understood. 
President  Hyde  of  the  Equitable  Life  had  long  previously 
done  similar  work,  but  he  did  not  call  it  a  "school."  There 
had  been  meetings  of  the  department  heads  in  stores  in  the 
time  of  A.  T.  Stewart  and  latterly  of  Wanamaker;  but 
these  meetings,  arising  probably  out  of  sympathy  for  the 
men  who  had  graduated  from  the  "University  of  Hard 
Knocks,"  were  not  of  the  nature  of  schools,  although  their 
purposes  were  the  same;  viz.,  to  teach  the  men  how  to  do 
their  work  in  the  best  way,  and  to  collate  the  experiences 
of  all  on  problems  of  procedure,  discipline,  and  daily  work. 
The  same  procedure  had  been  in  operation  for  nearly  a 
century  in  the  Naval  Academy  at  Annapolis  and  in  the 
West  Point  Military  Academy. 

Origin  of  the  N.  C.  R.  School 

The  principle  was  not  new,  although  it  found  a  new  ap- 
plication in  the  establishment  of  the  N.  C.  R.  school. 

In  1893,  John  H.  Patterson,  president  of  the  National 
Cash  Register  Company,  became  dissatisfied  with  the  results 
secured  by  the  company's  sales  force,  and  began  an  investi- 
gation of  its  apparent  deficiencies.  As  his  consistent  habit 
is,  he  reduced  what  he  found  to  a  definite  classification  of 
facts  and  ideas.  After  visiting  all  the  selling  centers  of 
the  company's  organization,  and  talking  with  nearly  all  the 
men,  he  found  the  following  situation : 

First — They  didn't  know  what  they  were  selling,  either — 

a.  From  the  standpoint  of  its  technical  superiority 

over  competitors ;  or 

b.  From  the  standpoint  of  its  use  to  the  man  who  was 

expected  to  buy  the  register. 


THE    N.    C.    R.    SCHOOL 

Second— They  didn't  know  the  most  efficient  method  of 
selhng  cash  registers  to  men  in  different  hnes  of  business. 

Most  managers  would  have  given  an  hour's  talk  on 
greater  mdustry,  telling  the  men  to  watch  each  other  and 
warnmg  them  about  not  "making  good."  Most  men  in  Mr 
Patterson's  position  would  have  considered  the  advisability 
of  hiring  a  new  sales  manager,  of  changing  the  terms,  or 
lowering  the  prices ;  or  would  merely  have  cussed  about  "the 
quality  of  the  salesmen  we  are  getting  nowadays"  and  gone 
home  and  worried  about  "conditions  in  the  field." 

The  N.  C.  R.  sales  organization  was  neither  better  nor 
worse  than  many  others;  it  was  a  crowd  of  two  or  three 
hundred  individuals,  each  doing  what  he  thought  was  his 
best— when  he  thought  about  it  at  all. 

That  trip  around  the  circle  was  a  "journey  down  to 
Damascus"  for  Mr.  Patterson.  For  him,  to  see  the  lio-ht 
was  to  act;  for  it  is  one  of  the  peculiarities  of  Mr  Patt'^er- 
son's  genius  to  consider  nothing  as  fixed.  He  has  held  as 
one  of  the  cardinal  principles  of  his  strenuous  career  that 
Wise  men  are  continually  changing  their  minds."  He  is 
always  alive,  always  ready,  and  welcomes  with  delight  an 
opportunity  to  make  a  change. 

To  the  objections  of  those  who  could  see  no  reason  on 
one  occasion,  for  a  voluntary  and  radical  cut  in  the  prices  of 
registers,  his  answer  was  : 

"We  will  do  this  because  it  is  the  best  thing  to  do  That 
nobody  has  ever  done  it  before  is  no  reason  why  we  should 
not  do  it-it  is  only  an  excuse."  This  method  of  lookin- 
at  things  insures  lots  of  new  ideas-and  some  good  ones 

Immediately  after  that  trip  around  the  circle    Mr    Pat 
terson  began  to  construct  a  system  of  teaching  salesman- 
ship to  the  men  who  were  selling  his  product.     He  put  his 
finger  on  the  sore  spot-lack  of  knowledge  of  the  construe- 


234 


A    PAPER    OF    BRASS    TACKS 


tion  and  the  uses  of  the  article  in  the  hands  of  the  customer. 
His  salesmen  were  ignorant  of  the  value  of  the  registers  to 
the  customers.    He  didn't  flinch  a  moment. 

He  may  have  reasoned  something  like  this :  "Most  of 
our  men  don't  know  the  way  our  most  successful  men  sell 
cash  registers.  Some  know  more  or  less  about  the  me- 
chanical features  of  our  registers ;  some  know  all  the  uses 
a  register  can  be  put  to  in  many  lines,  and  some  know  but 
a  few.  All  should  have  a  chance  to  know  what  each  has 
learned.  Almost  all  are  good  material,  as  men  go ;  I  cannot 
see  where  I  can  get  better  man-stuff.  I  must  fashion  this 
man-stuff  into  more  efficient  selling  units." 

The  Idea 

Just  as  Colt  made  each  revolver  like  every  other,  so  that 
a  hundred  could  be  taken  apart,  the  parts  thrown  promiscu- 
ously together,  and  a  hundred  revolvers  could  be  assembled 
again,  and  each  work  perfectly,  so  Mr.  Patterson  saw  the 
necessity  for  striving  toward  interchangeability  of  the  parts 
of  his  selling  efficiency.  Like  Colt,  he  saw  that  it  meant 
standardization  of  every  process  in  the  making  of  those  parts. 
He  realized  that  men,  at  bottom,  are  much  alike — and  that 
applies  to  customers  as  well  as  salesmen. 

Mr.  Patterson  therefore  set  himself  the  tremendous  task 
of  standardizing  the  selling  methods  and  salesmanship  effort, 
realizing  that  he  could  never  perfect  it  in  all  details — even 
the  revolver  has  not  been  perfected — but  seeing  that  what 
could  be  done  was  well  worth  doing  at  once. 

Educational  methods  had  to  be  standardized.  The  policy 
of  depending  on  the  "born  salesman"  was  a  failure.  The 
hit-or-miss  system  of  recruiting  the  sales  force  was  a  failure. 
The  idea  that  salesmen  would  get  the  "know  how"  if  they 
were  given  enough  experience  was  a  failure;  and  it  had 
always  been  a  failure  because  success  is  not  an  instinct. 


THE    N.    C.    R.    SCHOOL 


235 


So  the  first  training  school  for  N.  C.  R.  salesmen,  called 
together  on  that  epochal  14th  of  April,  1894,  was  the  answer 
of  a  hard-headed  practical  selling  genius  to  the  2,000-year- 
old  problem  of  how  to  increase  the  selling  efficiency  of  men 
— a  problem  which  the  Apostle  Paul  had  recognized  and 
struggled  with  in  his  day  in  the  training  of  those  who  were 
to  become  shepherds  of  the  flock  and  preachers  of  the  Word 
in  days  to  come. 

The  idea  was  about  as  popular  as  a  mouse  at  a  5  o'clock 
tea.  Nobody  was  enthusiastic  over  the  idea  of  calling  the 
men  from  the  field  to  attend  a  training  school  in  salesman- 
ship. Ridicule  of  the  idea  was  open  or  sly.  Nobody  really 
wanted  to  "waste  the  time" ;  nobody  wanted  to  teach  the 
school ;  and  nobody  would  admit  they  needed  instruction  by 
attending  it ! 

Mr,  Patterson  has  a  habit  of  seeing  that  his  orders  are 
obeyed — many  think  he  has  the  "get-out-or-get-in-line" 
policy  of  management  abnormally  developed — and  he  saw 
to  it  that  his  school  idea  got  a  fair  trial. 

The  Problem 

It  is  one  job  to  develop  a  principle,  or  idea  of  a  course 
of  action,  and  quite  a  dififerent  one  to  apply  it  to  a  concrete 
case  by  elaborating  a  method  that  shall  be  flexible  enough  to 
use  all  types  of  men  and  to  meet  all  conditions. 

The  procedure  from  a  scientific  analysis  of  such  a  con- 
dition is  plain.  In  meeting  the  requirements  of  the  com- 
pany's sales  condition  it  was  necessary: 

First — To  analyze  the  successful  and  unsuccessful  sales 
to  see  of  what  selling  arguments,  strategies,  and  conditions 
they  were  made. 

Second — To  carefully  check  up  the  causes  of  failure  or 
success  to  see  what  they  were,  of  and  by  themselves,  i.  e., 


236 


A    PAPER    OF    BRASS    TACKS 


those  personal  with  the  salesmen,  those  which  were  the 
logical  result  of  the  application  of  the  company  policies,  and 
those  which  arose  from  the  social,  business,  or  political  con- 
ditions peculiar  to  the  territories. 

Third — By  putting  these  findings  together,  to  map  out 
a  plan  by  which  the  good  things  might  be  pushed  and  the 
inefficient  be  killed  in  the  actual  work  of  the  men  in  the 
field. 

After  this  general  analysis  of  the  selling  conditions  and 
the  materials,  it  was  necessary  to  go  a  step  further,  and  find : 

First — How  the  most  expert  and  successful  men,  under 
typically  variable  conditions,  sold  cash  registers. 

Second — In  what  way  those  methods  could  be  reduced 
to  a  system  which  could  be  understood  and  applied  by  all 
the  force. 

Third — The  methods  by  which  all  the  men  who  had 
found  out  or  had  been  taught  this  system,  could  be  kept  at 
their  top  efficiency. 

Fourth — What  reward  was  really  due  these  men  who  did 
as  well  as  they  could ;  and  how  those  who  didn't  could  be 
aroused  to  apply  their  energies  more  efficiently. 

Fifth — How  to  get  from  those  who  were  efficient,  the 
kind  of  co-operation  in  experience  and  inspiration  which 
would  make  the  rest  of  the  force  also  efficient. 

Sixth — The  method  of  training  by  which  the  results  of 
the  foregoing  might  be  opened  to  the  newest  as  well  as  the 
oldest  man  and  by  which  those  who  needed  it  would  surely 
get  it,  and  be  willing  to  accept  it  and  work  with  it. 

Required  Instructions 

The  real  purpose  of  teaching  salesmen,  office  people,  or 
factory  hands  is,  of  course,  that  they  may  learn  to  teach 
themselves,  this  being  the  true  object  of  all  education. 


THE     N.     C.     R.     SCHOOL 


237 


Even  when  given  standard  practice  cards  and  manuals 
to  follow,  the  worker  must  be  convinced  that  the  way  ofifered 
is  the  best  way.  When  any  part  ceases  to  be  the  best,  it 
must  be  changed,  and  the  changing  process  will  be  contin- 
uous. Each  salesman  must  be  taught,  as  a  late  instructor 
puts  it,  to : 

1.  Observe 

2.  Listen 

3.  Read 

4.  Discuss 

5.  Formulate 

That  these  are  the  objects,  and  thus  the  sequence,  of  any 
truly  efficient  educative  process,  any  trained  teacher  knows. 
It  is  hardly  necessary  to  show  how  these  exemplify  the 
principles  which  have  been  described  and  which  will  be 
more  completely  given  hereafter.  Keep  them  in  mind,  if  you 
please,  in  testing  the  practice  which  Mr.  Patterson  developed. 

It  is  doubtful  that  Mr.  Patterson  consciously  followed 
any  of  our  principles,  but  it  is  certain  he  would  not  have 
succeeded  had  he  not  followed  them.  It  has  been  out  of 
the  successful  practice  of  such  men  that  analysis  has  deduced 
laws  for  the  guidance  of  those  of  us  who,  neither  by  ex- 
perience nor  native  power,  could  have  arrived  at  the  correct 
system  without  the  spur  and  directive  power  of  the  analysis. 

Some  of  the  Results 

The  practical  results  of  the  school  idea  applied  to  the 
N.  C.  R.  conditions  was  gratifying  even  if  somewhat  mixed. 
One  of  the  first  training  schools  was  held  in  New  York  and 
one  of  the  first  things  the  men  were  asked  to  learn  was  the 
"Primer,"  which  was  a  simple,  direct,  printed  statement  of 
the  manner  in  which  a  cash  register  could  be  applied  to  a 
retail  business.    Cash  prizes  were  ofifered  for  quick  work. 


238         A  PAPER  OF  BRASS  TACKS 

When  the  examination  came  off,  three  of  those  who  at- 
tended the  school  made  so  nearly  perfect  a  record  that  none 
of  them  was  given  the  particular  prize;  but  the  prize  was 
increased  a  little  and  divided  among  the  three. 

One  of  the  prize  winners  was  a  mere  boy  in  the  Brooklyn 
office  who  had  been  permitted  to  study  the  "Primer."  At 
the  time  of  the  competition  he  was  drawing  a  salary  of 
$4.50  per  week.  A  few  years  later  he  was  made  manager  for 
Continental  Europe.  He  adopted  the  attitude  of  the  learner 
toward  all  of  the  work  with  which  he  came  in  contact  in  the 
after-career.  He  was  always  learning  the  ''Primer"  of  the 
job  ahead  of  him.  Such  an  attitude  is  as  truly  scientific  as 
that  of  the  financier  who  has  a  list  of  future  maturing  obli- 
gations placed  in  front  of  him  each  day,  and  who  conducts 
today's  business  with  an  eye  to  those  future  obligations. 

Another  youngster,  at  an  earlier  period,  had  played  the 
game  according  to  these  rules,  and  he  became  general  man- 
ager of  the  company's  business.  The  youngster  was  Hugh 
Chalmers,  now  president  of  the  Chalmers  Motor  Car  Com- 
pany— but  his  is  another  story.  Others  of  like  importance 
to  the  business  came  up  through  this  training  school — many 
unconscious  even  of  the  debt  they  owed  to  its  influence  in 
developing  new  viewpoints — to  become  officers,  heads  of  de- 
partments, or  star  salesmen.  This  training  school  idea  was 
not  the  idle  whim  of  a  notional  owner  who  had  a  mania  for 
something  "different."  Turning  from  its  more  conspicuous 
products,  we  find  that  the  school  idea  worked  equally  well 
in  the  case  of  the  average  man,  as  the  statement  of  Mr. 
Chalmers  quoted  in  the  opening  paragraphs  shows. 

Instructors  and  Methods 

The  idea  of  a  school  was  a  good  one,  but  the  method  of 
conducting  it  was  just  as  important;  and  this  was  not  left 
to  chance,  for  Mr.  Patterson  was  not  satisfied  to  have  men 


THE    N.    C    R.     SCHOOL 


239 


merely  lecture  to  his  salesmen.  No  matter  how  learned  in 
business,  how  clever  a  talker,  or  how  successful  a  salesman, 
a  man  may  be,  he  is  not  necessarily  a  teacher.  The  majority 
of  those  who  have  salesmen  to  train  and  attempt  to  train 
them,  make  one  vital  error  right  here  which  leads  to  that 
near-success  of  an  idea,  which  is  more  annoying  than  failure. 
In  the  first  place,  they  will  not  pay  for  the  time  necessary 
to  analyze  into  its  elements  the  present  sales  efficiency  of  the 
organization.  Next,  they  do  not  discover  what  is  necessary 
for  the  salesmen  to  learn,  in  order  to  be  efficient,  for  inas- 
much as  they  have  not  analyzed,  they  are  not  in  condition  to 
find  those  facts. 

First — Find  the  man  who  has  at  his  tongue's  end  the 
things  that  his  salesmen  should  know  to  be  efficient. 

Second — Know  whether  the  teacher  is  able  to  arouse  an 
interest  in  the  subject  and  an  enthusiasm  for  his  method  of 
teaching. 

Third — Know  whether  he  is  able  to  tell  when  the  sales- 
men have  "got  the  point"  he  is  endeavoring  to  give  them. 

Mr.  Patterson  took  the  school  idea  seriously  and  he  in- 
sisted that  everybody  about  him  should  take  it  the  same  way. 
He  wanted  formulas.  He  insisted  that  methods  and  argu- 
ments and  explanations  be  put  into  trenchant  form  for  ready 
assimilation  even  by  the  dullest.  He  hesitated  at  no  price 
to  get  teachers. 


CHAPTER    XX 

STANDARD    PRACTICE    INSTRUCTIONS 

The  idea  of  perfection  is  not  involved  in  standardiza- 
tion. The  standard  method  of  doing  anything  is  simply 
the  best  method  that  can  be  devised  at  the  time  the 
standard  is  draztm. — Morris  Llewellyn  Cooke. 

Formulas  and  Precepts 

It  is  important  to  understand  that  a  concrete  formula- 
tion of  a  policy  in  any  business,  such  as  we  have  already  seen 
in  the  case  of  Wanamaker,  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  as  a  national  policy,  and  in  the  Precepts  of  Bushido 
as  to  Japanese  character,  is  an  important  first  step  towards 
the  realization  of  efficiency  in  practice. 

The  Ten  Commandments  are  the  Standard  Practice  In- 
structions of  Moses  to  his  people. 

The  concrete  formulation  of  principles  is  certainly  good 
teaching-  practice.  We  shall  eventually  realize  that  the 
greatest  men  have  been  those  who  have  concentrated  their 
experience  and  their  teaching  into  formulas.  Take,  for 
instance,  Marshall  Field,  who  was  one  of  the  greatest  de- 
finers  of  methods  in  the  merchandising  business.  John 
Wanamaker's  speeches  and  selling  manuals  are  models  of 
business  philosophy  and  rules  of  practice.  He  is  constantly 
giving  his  people  outlines  for  guidance.  Stephen  Girard's 
rules  of  action  are  famous.  A.  T.  Stewart  has  a  thousand 
epigrams  credited  to  him. 

Thomas  A.  Edison  has  recently  been  giving  a  good  deal 
of  attention  to  formulating  his  rules  of  life.  Andrew  Car- 
negie's "Empire  of  Business"  is  filled  with  epigrams.    Hugh 

240 


STANDARD    PRACTICE    INSTRUCTIONS 


241 


Chalmers  is  constantly  talking  about  "The  Ten  Best  Things 
to  do  Today"  and  has  carried  the  gospel  of  five  attributes  of 
a  successful  salesman  throughout  the  land.  John  H.  Pat- 
terson has  never  failed  to  give  a  recipe  for  something  in 
each  of  the  many  speeches  he  has  made  to  his  employes, 
Lincoln's  rule,  "Of  the  people,  for  the  people  and  by  the 
people"  was  nothing  less  than  a  formula.  Roosevelt's 
speeches  are  full  of  rules.  Stevenson's  creeds  and  prayers 
will  be  longest  remembered  by  the  mass  of  men,  because  he 
links  great  life  principles  to  their  own  thoughts  and  moods, 
and  makes  clear  what  they  have  felt  and  thought. 

Lodge's  Rules  of  Management 

Recently,  William  Lodge,  head  of  one  of  the  leading 
machine-tool  companies,  prepared  his  "Rules  of  Manage- 
ment," saying: 

"When  I  decided  to  relinquish  the  reins  of  business  and 
let  a  younger  generation  take  up  the  management,  I 
realized  what  would  probably  happen  if  I  simply  handed 
them  over  to  others  who  had  never  learned  how  to  drive. 
*  *  *  I  commenced  to  teach  them  how  to  handle  things 
just  as  they  were.  In  carrying  out  my  plan,  the  following 
record  of  personal  experience,  put  in  the  form  of  rules  and 
comment,  was  written  to  give  information  to  the  succeed- 
ing manager  of  the  shop  of  the  Lodge  &  Shipley  Machine 
Tool  Company." 

Surely  that  is  a  very  simple  and  fundamental  thing. 

There  is  a  best  way  to  do  everything. 

If  that  is  so  then  tell  us  about  it  so  we  can  start  with 
the  best  and  do  it  better  if  we  can. 

The  best  way  to  tell  it  is  to  write  it  out  so  we  can  have 
it  to  think  on. 

That  is  the  secret  of  the  Standard  Practice  Instructions 
of  the  scientific  managers  and  the  efficiency  engineers. 

The  orders  given  to  army  commanders  are  written,  ex- 
cept in  great  stress  of  battle. 


242 


A  PAPER  OF  BRASS  TACKS 


The  inter-departmental  correspondence  of  institutions  is 
written  on  special  blanks,  some  of  which  have  "Avoid  Oral 
Orders"  as  their  motto,  without  realizing  they  are  scientific 
in  that  direction. 

Doctors  write  their  prescriptions. 

But  we  don't  write  our  instructions  to  our  working  men. 
We  leave  it  to  them  to  "figure  it  out"  with  the  assistance  of 
indifferent,  intolerant,  or  incapable  foremen. 

In  the  vast  majority  of  business  houses,  oral  instruc- 
tions about  the  most  important  things  are  still  the  rule. 

Those  men  who  have  most  profoundly  influenced  their 
age  and  left  the  deepest  impression  on  aftertimes,  put  in 
concrete  and  definite  form  the  thought  or  the  plan  of  con- 
duct which  vitalized  their  work  in  such  a  way  that,  glittering 
generalities  though  they  be,  they  have  exercised  a  stupendous 
practical  force. 

The  small  brain  wants  a  line  of  action  to  copy,  and  not 
a  principle  to  put  into  action ;  which  means,  of  course,  that 
parrotwise  it  is  generally  copied  very  badly.  It  has  always 
been  the  same  with  little  minds. 

Napoleon  as  a  Civil  Administrator 

But  it  is  necessary  to  state  principles  and  to  standardize 
operations ;  such  has  been  the  law  from  the  time  of  Moses 
and  the  Ten  Commandments  to  the  present  day.  An  his- 
torical incident  is  here  in  point. 

On  the  19th  of  September,  1797,  a  few  days  after  the 
Revolution  of  Fructidor,  when  the  whole  French  nation  was 
eagerly  looking  forward  to  great  results  from  that  revolu- 
tion. Napoleon  saw  the  insufficiency  of  the  effort  and  fore- 
saw the  inevitable  failure.  He  put  his  finger  on  the  whole 
weakness ;  c.  g.,  the  futility  of  the  idea  that  the  mere  chang- 
ing of  laws  changed  nations,  peoples,  and  conditions.  He 
said: 


STANDARD    PRACTICE    INSTRUCTIONS  243 

"Notwithstanding  our  pride,  our  thousand  and  one 
pamphlets,  our  speechifying,  we  are  very  ignorant  in 
political  and  social  science.  We  have  not  yet  defined  what 
we  mean  by  the  executive,  legislative,  and  judicial  powers. 
Montesquieu's  definitions  are  false. 

"In  fifty  years  I  can  see  but  one  thing  that  we  have 
defined  clearly,  which  is  the  sovereignty  of  the  people;  but 
we  have  done  no  more  towards  settling  what  is  constitu- 
tional than  we  have  in  the  distribution  of  powers.  The  or- 
ganization of  the  French  nation  is,  therefore,  still  incom- 
plete. This  legislature,  without  ears  or  eyes  for  what  sur- 
rounds it,  should  no  longer  overwhelm  us  with  a  thousand 
laws,  passed  on  the  spur  of  the  moment,  that  negative  one 
absurdity  by  another,  and  that  leave  us,  with  three  hundred 
folios  of  laws,  a  lawless  nation. 

"Here,  I  think,  is  a  political  creed  which  our  present 
circumstances  render  excusable.  What  a  misfortune  for  a 
nation  of  thirty  millions  of  people,  and  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  to  be  driven  to  the  support  of  bayonets  to  save  the 
country  I" 
When  he  rose  to  power  he  thought  for  all — he  formu- 
lated— he  standardized. 

An  Administrative  Manualization 

On  the  26th  of  December,    1799,   Napoleon  wrote  to 
Lucien  Bonaparte,  then  Minister  of  the  Interior: 

"If  war  were  not  a  necessity,  my  first  care  would  be  to 
found  the  prosperity  of  France  on  the  communes.  It  is  a 
much  simpler  matter,  when  reconstructing  a  nation,  to  deal 
with  one  thousand  of  its  inhabitants  at  a  time  instead  of 
striving  romantically  for  the  individual  happiness  of  every 
one  *  *  *  an  individual  proprietor  is  always  alive  to  his 
interests,  while  a  community  is,  on  the  contrary,  sleepy  and 
sterile;  the  interests  of  an  individual  are  a  matter  of  simple 
instinct;  those  of  a  commune  demand  virtue,  and  virtue  is 
rare.    *    *    * 

"The  first  condition,  when  dealing  with  a  great  evil,  is 
to  diagnose  carefully  its  gravity  and  its  incidence.*  The 
Minister  of  the  Interior  will,  therefore,  begin  drawing  up  a 
general  schedule  of  the  situation  of  36,000  communes  of 


*  You  see  in  this,  Napoleon's  acceptance  of  the  principle  of  diagnosis  before 
applying  a  cure — carefully  thinking  about  a  thing  before  doing  anything  about  it. 


244 


A     PAPER    OF    BRASS    TACKS 

France.  You  have  never  had  such  a  schedule.  Here  are 
the  principal  heads  to  be  set  down.  There  will  be  three 
classes :  Communes  who  are  in  debt ;  communes  whose 
accounts  balance ;  communes  with  assets.  The  last  two 
classes  are  not  numerous,  and  their  case  is  not  pressing. 
The  real  question  is  how  to  clear  the  communes  that  are 
in  debt.    The  schedule  will  follow : 

"First — Details  of  property  accruing  to  the  commune 
after  the  division  of  communal  property. 

"Second — Details  of  the  loans,  of  outstanding  debts, 
and  of  dates  of  payment. 

"Third — Valuation  of  revenues  under  specific  heads,  as 
rents,  leases,  etc. 

"Fourth — Charges  other  than  those  that  are  strictly 
communal,  as  payment  to  the  hospitals,  charities,  etc. 

"Fifth — Details  of  the  roads,  with  the  general  indication 
of  those  that  are  useful  and  those  that  might  be  sold. 

"Sixth — Conditions  of  the  rectories,  churches,  and  an- 
nexes. 

"Seventh — Details  of  rebates  to  be  got  from  owners  of 
foreshore  who  have  plundered  the  commune. 

"Eighth — Timber,  and  what  kind  that  might  profitably 
be  sold. 

"Ninth — Whether  leases,  rights  of  fishery,  and  of  pas- 
turing might  be  made  more  remunerative. 

"When  this  schedule  is  drawn  up,  the  Prefect  will  be 
notified  that  the  whole  effort  of  the  administration  must  be 
brought  to  bear  on  the  communes  that  are  in  debt ;  and  that 
the  mayors  who  do  not  come  into  line  with  these  views  of 
communal  improvement  must  be  removed. 

"The  Prefect  is  to  visit  these  communes  at  least  twice 
a  year,  under  penalty  of  removal  from  office.  A  monthly 
report  shall  be  sent  to  the  Minister  of  what  is  being  done 
and  of  what  remains  to  be  done  in  these  communes.  Sug- 
gestions may  be  sent  in  to  me  for  a  prize  to  be  awarded  to 
mayors  who  free  their  communes  from  debt  within  two 
years,  and  the  government  will  appoint  a  special  commis- 
sioner to  administer  every  commune  that  is  not  free  in  five 
years.  In  five  years,  therefore,  there  will  be  only  two 
classes  of  communes  in  France :  Communes  with  assets ; 
communes  whose  accounts  balance. 

"Having  reached  this  first  leveling  up,  the  efforts  of 
the  Minister  and  of  the  communes  will  be  directed  towards 
bringing  up  the  communes  whose  accounts  balance  into  the 


STANDARD     PRACTICE     INSTRUCTIONS  245 

class  of  the  communes  with  assets,  so  that  in  ten  years 
France  will  have  none  but  the  latter  class.  Then  the  trend 
toward  prosperity  resulting  from  thirty-six  million  individ- 
ual efforts  will  be  intensified  by  the  power  of  36,000  com- 
munal entities,  all  acting  under  the  guidance  of  government 
in  the  line  of  greater  and  greater  improvement. 

"Every  year  the  fifty  mayors  who  have  done  most  to 
free  their  communes  or  to  increase  their  resources,  shall  be 
brought  to  Paris  at  the  expense  of  the  State  and  presented 
ceremonially  to  the  three  consuls. 

"A  column  erected  at  the  expense  of  the  government  at 
the  principal  entrance  of  the  city  or  village  will  hand  the 
name  of  the  mayor  down  to  posterity.  On  it  shall  be  in- 
scribed :  'A  grateful  Country  to  the  Guardian  of  his  Com- 


It  is  well  for  us  to  remember  that  Napoleon  at  this  time 
was  thirty  years  of  age,  but  we  see  the  mind  at  work  that 
afterwards  was  to  frame  the  Code  Napoleon — formulate  and 
found  the  Academy,  and  was  to  bring  the  Bank  of  France 
into  existence,  while  fighting  the  greatest  wars  of  his  time. 

Manuallzing  the  Salesman's  Work 

With  Napoleon  it  was  manualizing  the  job  of  an  admin- 
istrative officer.  The  same  principle  is  applied  when  the 
Curtis  Publishing  Company  manualizes  the  work  of  stenog- 
raphers and  ledger  clerks.  It  is  the  same  principle  when 
Mr.  Patterson  manualizes  the  work  of  a  salesman.  But 
Mr.  Patterson  talks  to  sales  managers  and  salesmen,  not  to 
prefects  and  mayors. 

I  believe  that  it  was  the  N.  C.  R.  schoolmaster  who  first 
said : 

"Every  sale  is  composed  of  three  parts : 

1.  The  approach 

2.  The  demonstration 

3.  The  close 

"It  doesn't  make  any  difference  whether  the  approach 


*"The   Corsican — A   Diary   of  Napoleon's   Life   in   His  Own   Words,"  by   R.   M. 
Johnston. 


246  A    PAPER    OF    BRASS    TACKS 

consists  of  two  words,  'Good  morning'  and  the  demonstra- 
tion of,  'Here's  the  goods,  you  need  them,'  and  the  closing, 
'Sign  your  name  here' — these  three  elements  are  in  every 
sale." 

Afterwards  it  was  another  N.  C.  R.  sales  manager  who, 
recognizing  the  scientific  spirit,  added  two  preHminary 
stages  to  the  sale — investigation,  preparation,  and  then  ap- 
proach, etc. 

The  Salesman 

Then  the  N.  C.  R.  schoolmaster  asks,  "What  are  the 
attributes  of  a  successful  salesman  ?"  and  his  answer  is : 

1.  Health 

2.  Knowledge  of  the  business 

3.  Systematic  industry 

4.  Honesty 

5.  Enthusiasm 

Then  he  takes  the  negative  side  of  the  case,  and  after  an 
analysis  of  the  failures  in  the  N.  C.  R.  business,  covering  a 
period  of  years,  he  gives  these  reasons  for  failure : 

1.  Lack  of  tact 

2.  Slovenly  and  careless  dress 

3.  Does  not  intelligently  answer  questions 

4.  Lack  of  ability 

5.  Awkwardness 

6.  Lack  of  dignity 

7.  Failing  to  get  the  prospect  to  look  at  his  goods 

8.  Indiscreet  answers 

9.  Improper  use  of  advertising 

10.  Unclean  office  and  poor  display 

11.  No  window  displays 

12.  Doesn't  understand  the  register,  or  can't  explain  it 

13.  Doesn't  understand  the  prospect's  business 


STANDARD    PRACTICE    INSTRUCTIONS 


247 


14.  Doesn't  keep  up  with  the  new  arguments  and  in- 

formation the  company  uses 

15.  Doesn't  show   low-priced  as  well  as  high-priced 

registers 

16.  Failure  to  co-operate  with  the  company's  adver- 

tising 

17.  Failure  to  say  or  do  the  best  thing  in  the  best  way 

Making  the  Precept  Practice 

These  schedules  of  success  and  failure  were  not  hidden 
away  in  typewritten  form  to  be  read  by  a  few  of  the  heads 
of  departments  or  sales  managers,  who  would  look  upon 
them  as  interesting  but  useless  literary  exercises  for  a  man 
who  ought  to  be  out  selling  machines.  They  were  blazoned 
on  the  front  page  of  the  company's  "Sales  Bulletin,"  printed 
on  cards  for  office  display,  put  in  handbooks,  made  the  sub- 
ject of  talks  by  the  president,  discussed  in  the  schools  at  the 
factory  and  at  the  Saturday  afternoon  round-table  sessions 
of  salesmen  in  the  city  and  country  offices.  They  were 
preached  with  all  the  ardor  of  Billy  Sunday  denouncing  the 
devil. 

The  men  were  "checked  up"  against  these  standards  by 
district  managers  while  on  tours  of  inspection,  and  sales- 
men were  quizzed  and  questioned,  observed  and  counseled, 
promoted  and  fired,  rewarded  and  fined  through  money  and 
honors,  on  their  showings  in  these  examinations.  This 
formula  under  such  circumstances  came  to  be  a  very  real 
standard  to  N.  C.  R.  men.  As  it  became  real,  men  ceased 
to  doubt  and  smile ;  they  got  busy  and  became  better  men. 

That  it  made  failures  sell  cash  registers  and  good  men 
sell  a  lot  of  them,  is  conceded  by  all  who  are  familiar  with 
the  story.  Thus  it  didn't  "happen"  that  the  efficiency  of  the 
N.  C.  R.  sales  organization  is  the  envy  and  the  despair  of 
other  concerns  the  world  over. 


248 


A     PAPER    OF    BRASS    TACKS 


Standardizing  Sales  Methods 

Having  found  what  went  into  the  making  of  effective 
salesmen  and  what  were  the  common  defects  of  the  ineffi- 
cient, Mr.  Patterson  was  ready  for  further  defining  and 
planning.  He  got  the  men  as  they  came  to  the  training 
school,  to  tell  specifically  how  they  sold  a  register  to  a 
peanut  stand  in  a  great  city.  He  had  them  sell  registers 
to  himself,  or  to  one  of  their  number,  in  the  same  manner 
they  did  to  a  possible  buyer.  He  had  stenographic  notes 
taken  of  the  conversation  and  arguments  and  gave  prizes 
for  true  stories  of  actual  sales.  He  found  that  all  the  argu- 
ments used  in  meeting  the  price  objection  were  surprisingly 
alike;  that  the  approach  was  almost  the  same  in  essentials 
among  those  who  were  admittedly  the  most  successful  in 
getting  the  ear  of  a  possible  purchaser. 

The  problem  of  selecting  a  man  to  write  a  standard 
demonstration  and  approach,  was  answered  in  a  typically 
Patterson  fashion.  Nine  hundred  ninety-nine  men  out  of 
a  thousand  would  have  selected  the  "cleverest  salesman  in 
the  force,"  or  the  advertising  man  who  is  supposed  to  know 
how  to  write,  to  prepare  a  printed  demonstration  of  the 
product — and  the  reason  would  appear  quite  obvious,  be- 
cause that  man  knew  most  about  the  product. 

Going  further,  however,  that  is  soon  found  to  be  an  in- 
sufficient, if  not  a  very  bad,  reason  indeed.  What  is  the 
object  of  a  standard  demonstration?  Is  it  not  to  attract  and 
interest  the  "prospect"  in  the  product's  value  to  him? 

Then  the  greatest  and  most  fertile  point  of  contact  is 
that  of  the  machine,  and  not  the  salesman's  theory  as  to 
possible  use  the  purchaser  may  make  of  it. 

The  "Possible  Purchaser" 

One  day,  after  everybody  had  been  toiling  and  fussing 
over  standard  demonstrations,  all  of  which  were  too  long 


STANDARD     PRACTICE    INSTRUCTIONS 


249 


or  complicated,  or  too  short  or  uninteresting,  Mr.  Patter- 
son walked  in  with  a  clerical-looking  gentleman  and  intro- 
duced him  as,  "Rev.  Somebody,  who  is  going  to  write  our 
approach  and  demonstration." 

Tableau  in  sales  office! 

The  reverend  gentleman,  to  cut  the  story  short,  made 
good,  and  his  demonstration  is  the  basis  of  the  one  used 
today  by  every  N.  C.  R.  salesman.  Yet  the  result  was  a 
very  logical  one — the  preacher  didn't  know  too  much  about 
the  cash  register.  He  was  the  "possible  purchaser" ;  he 
asked  the  questions  and  wrote  the  answers  as  he  wanted 
them.  This  incident  is  quite  in  line  with  a  conclusion  that 
I  have  reached. 

After  nearly  twenty  years'  study  of  marketing  condi- 
tions, I  find  that  it  still  requires  a  surgical  operation  to  get 
the  simple  principle,  "It  is  not  necessary  that  a  man  know 
how  to  build  an  automobile  in  order  to  advertise  one,"  into 
the  heads  of  some  of  our  business  men. 


CHAPTER    XXI 

THE  SALES  MANUAL 

"The  instruction  card  is  to  the  art  of  management  what 
the  drawing  is  to  engineering." — Dr.  F.  W.  Taylor. 

Genesis  of  a  Sales  Manual 

For  years  a  specialty  company  with  which  I  was  asso- 
ciated, had  been  issuing  instruction  books  which  were  mar- 
vels of  technical  English  and  concentrated  information ;  but 
they  were  stiff,  wooden  in  expression,  and  nobody  ever 
thought  of  reading  one  and  only  the  greatest  necessity  could 
make  an  operator  of  a  machine  study  one. 

One  day  I  called  in  a  green  assistant  in  whom  I  placed 
a  great  deal  of  confidence.  I  said  to  him :  "Here  are  our 
instruction  books.  They  don't  instruct,  because  they  are 
about  as  interesting  as  a  tariff  schedule.  We  want  books 
that  operators  of  our  machines  will  be  glad  to  read.  You 
don't  know  anything  about  the  machines,  therefore  you  will 
probably  get  the  operator's  viewpoint.  I  want  you  to  write 
about  its  operation  just  as  though  you  were  writing  a  story 
for  the  'Saturday  Evening  Post.'  " 

We've  got  the  best  instruction  book  issued  by  any  com- 
pany manufacturing  a  similar  product. 

We  were  applying  the  same  principle  that  Mr.  Patterson 
used. 

The  N.  C.  R.  Manual 

Out  of  the  mass  of  experience  data  which  came  to  Mr. 
Patterson  from  his  men,  grew  the  "N.  C.  R.  Sales  Manual"* 


•  Not  now  issued,  as  daily  Sales  RuUetins  and  Continuous  Sales  Schools  have 
taken  its  place. 

250 


THE    SALES    MANUAL 


251 


— the  most  complete  and  efficient  textbook  of  salesmanship 
I  have  ever  seen. 

Four  different  editions  of  this  manual  lie  before  me. 
Each  is  an  improvement  on  the  former.  They  represent 
the  growth  of  an  idea.  Here  is  one  of  nearly  three  hundred 
pages.  It  is  a  complete  and  definite  explanation  of  the 
method  of  selling  cash  registers  and,  for  any  mind  not  en- 
tirely closed,  an  illumination  of  many  a  dark  corner  of  sales- 
manship. 

The  spirit  and  plan  of  the  book  lie  in  its  preface : 

"This  manual  is  a  handbook  of  information  and  in- 
struction for  the  benefit  of  N.  C.  R.  salesmen.  Its  object 
is  to  give  the  selling  force  the  benefit  of  the  combined  experi- 
ence of  old  and  successful  cash  register  salesmen." 

The  form  in  which  the  selling  data  was  prepared  was  in 
keeping  with  good  teaching  practice.  Suppose  a  merchant 
said :  "My  clerks  are  all  honest ;  I  do  not  need  a  cash  regis- 
ter." What  is  the  best  way  to  answer  that  without  making 
an  enemy  of  all  the  clerks  and  throwing  a  doubt  on  the  man's 
statement?  The  Manual  answers  that  objection  in  five  dif- 
ferent ways  and  in  ways  that  have  been  used  time  and  again 
in  winning  orders.  This  method  of  giving  objections  and 
"best  ways  to  answer  them"  is  followed  in  handling  over  a 
hundred  typical  objections. 

Arrangement  of  the  N.  C.  R.  Manual 

The  Manual  is  divided  into  four  parts : 

First — Cash  Register  Salesmanship — in  which  are  given 
the  definite  things  that  make  a  good  N.  C.  R.  salesman. 

Second — The  Approach — in  which  are  suggested  means 
and  methods  by  which  the  salesman  can  successfully  get  to 
see  the  prospect  under  any  circumstances. 

Third — The  Demonstration — this  includes  the  Primer, 


252 


A  PAPER  OF  BRASS  TACKS 


which  tells  the  complete  story  of  the  cash  register.  Then 
follows  the  selling  manual  which  contains  the  selling  points 
and  arguments,  and  even  shows  the  salesman  how  to  seat 
the  prospect  properly.  There  are  fifty  points  stated  in 
"don't"  style,  and  seventeen  points  of  failure  quoted  above. 
After  the  machine  is  demonstrated  so  that  the  prospect  is 
thoroughly  familiar  with  what  the  salesman  has  to  sell, 
comes  the — 

Fourth — Closing  Argimients — or  the  application  of  the 
register  to  the  prospect's  particular  business.  At  this  point 
comes  the  climax  of  the  selling  effort,  for,  as  the  Manual 
says,  "The  selling  of  a  cash  register  should  be  made  as  in- 
teresting as  a  story,"  to  overcome  objections  that  the  pros- 
pect will  throw  at  the  salesman.  The  manual  then  tells  how 
to  handle  the  order  and  get  the  best  terms. 

This  Manual  is  one  of  the  fruits  of  the  scientific  attitude 
towards  the  problem  of  gaining  greatest  efficiency  hi  selling 
goods.  It  illustrates  the  principle  of  Standardized  Instruc- 
tions as  necessary  to  efficient  work  and  applies  them  to 
salesmanship.  There  are  many  reasons  why  a  man  should 
buy  a  can  of  your  tomatoes,  but  there  is  a  best  way  to  phrase 
that  reason  and  a  best  way  to  handle  it ;  that  best  way  is  the 
way  your  best  salesman  handles  the  objection  when  it  is 
handed  to  him. 

The  Sales  Quota 

We  haven't  covered  all  of  our  six  laws  of  scientific  sell- 
ing. We  must  give  men  a  reason  for  following  our  plan, 
and  we  must  create  a  motive  for  their  enthusiastic  co-opera- 
tion. 

Mr.  Patterson  has  already  given  the  reason  for  the  effi- 
ciency of  his  Quota  Sales  Plan  as  outlined  in  Chapter  V. 
A  quota  of  sales  was  given  each  man  based  on  the  possi- 
bilities of  the  territory — not  of  the  man.     Men  of  the  right 


THE    SALES     MANUAL  253 

sort  were  then  engaged  and  trained  to  get  the  quota.  The 
quota  was  a  standard  performance  made  to  be  respected. 
The  quota  was  stated  in  "points"  (each  point  being  $25) 
and  indicated  the  amount  of  business  which  the  company 
expected  to  receive  from  each  territorial  division  of  the 
United  States. 

If  there  are,  we  shall  say  as  a  matter  of  illustration, 
100,000  tobacco  retailers  in  the  United  States,  and  our  to- 
bacco retailer's  sales  have  averaged  8  per  cent  of  the  com- 
pany's total  sales  each  year  for  five  years  and  have  shown 
an  average  increase  of  15  per  cent  a  year  in  the  line,  any 
territory  must  produce  that  per  cent  of  sales  in  that  line  as 
a  minimum.  In  a  territory  of  large  cities  or  many  pleasure 
resorts,  the  local  average  will  be  taken  as  a  minimum. 

All  lines  of  business  are  analyzed  in  the  same  way  and 
a  quota  given  each  man  for  each  line  in  his  territory. 
Month  by  month  the  sales  are  checked  up  and  when  a 
man  shows  a  weakness  in  certain  lines,  he  is  given  special 
instructions  in  handling  those  lines.  There  is  not  space 
here  to  give  a  minute  analysis  of  all  the  points  taken  into 
consideration  in  fixing  the  quota,  but  this  will  give  you 
a  hint  as  to  the  method.  That  quota  was  the  standard  by 
which  the  efficiency  of  the  salesman  or  of  the  local  sales 
manager  was  judged;  hence,  it  determined  their  measure 
of  usefulness  and  value  to  the  company. 

The  100-Pointers  Reward 

Then  came  the  play  on  human  nature,  none  the  less  a 
quality  requiring  scientific  consideration  because  it  has 
to  do  with  emotions,  as  I  have  mentioned  several  times 
before. 

It  is  all  right  to  find  out  selling  points  to  teach  the 
men  who  are  to  do  the  selling,  and  to  give  them  the 
complete  armory  of  machines,  arguments  that  have  sold 


254 


A    PAPER    OF    BRASS    TACKS 


and  of  facts  with  which  to  meet  all  objections,  but  it  is 
quite  another  thing  to  get  them  to  use  those  weapons 
with  that  enthusiasm  and  perfect  faith  which  come  from 
a  confidence  in  their  sale-making  value.  Mr.  Patterson's 
profound  knowledge  of  men  came  in  here. 

He  organized  lOO  Per  Cent  Clubs  of  the  men  who  had 
made  their  quota  for  six  months  or  more  in  succession. 
The  members  were  brought  to  the  factory  at  the  com- 
pany's expense  and  given  cash  prizes  and  diplomas;  the 
star  men  had  their  names  engraved  on  a  bronze  tablet 
which  was  placed  on  the  company's  buildings,  and  their 
pictures  were  printed  in  the  company's  "Sales  Bulletin." 
When  the  "lOO-Pointers"  came  into  the  factory  the  flags 
flew  from  every  corner  of  the  mammoth  plant,  and 
bulletins  posted  everywhere  told  the  six  thousand  em- 
ployes of  the  sales  prowess  of  the  men  in  whose  honor 
the  flags  were  flying. 

Managing  the  Sales  Force 

General  Manager,  E.  A.  Deeds,  said  to  a  class  that 
graduated  in  1910:  ''You  have  learned  here  how  to  study. 
In  this  school  you  have  enjoyed  many  advantages  which 
the  older  men  did  not  have.  You  have  studied  the  busi- 
ness in  a  simplified  form,  under  a  practical  instructor.  A 
great  many  of  our  old  men  are  handicapped  by  having 
learned  the  thing  the  wrong  way."  Please  note  that — 
"the  wrong  way."  How  many  salesmen  go  on  and  on  for 
years  handling  their  territories  and  certain  possible  cus- 
tomers in  the  wrong  way,  because  they  "learned  the  thing 
in  the  wrong  way" — yet  they  never  know  it. 

Then  Mr.  Deeds  counseled  them  to  loyalty,  and 
when  in  trouble  to  take  their  troubles  to  their  district 
managers  "who  were  there  to  help  them." 

This  brings  us  to  the  last  principle  of  efficient  sales 


THE     SALES     MANUAL 


255 


organization.  In  order  to  make  the  system  complete,  we 
must  have  competent  oversight  of  the  work.  The  district 
manager  and  the  local  sales  manager  were  Mr.  Patterson's 
answer  to  this  law  of  efficiency. 

He  had  this  idea  working  in  his  factory.  At  the  time 
the  class  mentioned  above  was  graduating,  a  District 
Manager's  Convention  was  in  session  at  Dayton.  This 
convention  was  held  for  the  purpose  of  showing  the  "man 
trainers"  how  to  train  and  what  new  things  to  teach. 
This  convention,  too,  presented  to  the  company's  ofScers 
the  side  of  the  practical  field  experience  as  an  aid  in  shap- 
ing company  policies.  As  a  result  of  the  week's  work 
with  the  district  managers,  the  company  decided  on  the 
following  principles  to  be  followed  in  managing  the  sales 
force : 

1.  Promote    from    the    ranks,    because    collectors, 

office  men,  and  repair  men  make  good  sale.=i- 
men. 

2.  Don't  keep  poor  salesmen. 

3.  Start  men  at  the  bottom  and  let  them  work  up. 

4.  Don't  hire  men  who  have  bad  habits. 

5.  Hire  only  men  who  have  good  appearance. 

6.  Give  men  employed  in  offices  a  chance  to  educate 

themselves. 

7.  Employ  men  for  the  office  always  with  the  view 

of  their  becoming  salesmen. 

8.  Interest  office  men  in  selling. 

9.  Same  amount  of  work  in  this  business  will  double 

salesmen's  income. 

10.  Don't  hire  men  who  change  positions  too  often. 

11.  Don't  try  to  do  anything  with  tricky  men;  hire 

reliable  men. 

12.  Ability  and  good  health  are  things  that  must  be 

taken  into  consideration  in  addition  to  honesty. 


256         A  PAPER  OF  BRASS  TACKS 

13.  We  want  men  in  our  business  who  are  strong-  and 
healthy. 

Training  Salesmen 

1.  New  salesmen  must  spend  at  least  sixty  days  in 

territory  before  starting  in  training  school. 

2.  Older  agents  must  demonstrate  registers  more  and 

study  the  business. 

3.  All  agents  and  salesmen  must  demonstrate  from 

registers  and  not  from  catalogs. 

4.  Company  officers  should  hold  conventions  weekly. 

Prizes 

1.  President's  prize  of  gold  watch,  chain,  etc.,  to  be 

awarded  on  percentage  of  quota  in  1910. 

2.  President   Patterson   announced    that   the   Hun- 

dred Point  Club  prizes  would  be  $150  in  gold, 
a  souvenir  pin,  and  a  trip  to  the  factory. 

How  to  Operate  City  and  Provincial  Territory 

I.  All  agents  should  employ  assistants.  These 
assistants  should  be  given  to  understand  that 
they  must  remain  with  the  agent  for  one  year 
before  they  will  be  given  territory  of  their 
own  if  they  are  competent. 

Duties  of  Assistant  Salesmen 

1.  Door-to-door  canvass. 

2.  Instal  registers. 

3.  Secure  settlements. 

4.  Sell  our  registers. 

5.  Unpack  samples. 

6.  Represent  agent  when  agent  is  not  in  of^ce. 

7.  Make  satisfied  users. 

8.  Develop  into  future  agent, 

9.  Keep  sales  agent  busy. 


THE    SALES    MANUAL 


257 


Automobiles 

1.  Use  automobiles  wherever  possible. 

2.  Quick  transportation  and  cheaper  advertising  are 

revolutionizing  the  whole  world. 

Advertising 

1.  Quicker  action  in  getting  out  advertising  matter. 

2.  Keep  standard  booklets  in  stock. 

3.  Create  desire  for  registers. 

4.  Have  one  kind  for  general  distribution,  and  many 

kinds  for  special  lines. 

5.  Don't  generalize  too  much. 

The  Doctrine  of  Definite  Instructions 

Thus,  the  teachers  were  taught,  under  the  direction 
of  the  general  sales  manager,  what  to  teach  the  men  in 
the  field;  company  policies  were  threshed  out  and  fixed; 
and  all  the  teachers  (for  that  is  what  Mr.  Patterson  con- 
siders his  managers)  were  given  a  chance  to  hear  all  the 
reasons  for  and  against  a  policy. 

These  policies  were  then  published  so  that  the  whole 
organization  might  know  them.  There  is  no  silly  fiddling 
and  whispering  behind  locked  doors,  or  any  mysterious 
chicanery  about  N.  C.  R.  sales  methods  and  policies. 
Good  or  bad,  the  whole  selling  policy  is  to  get  the  entire 
power  of  the  brains,  skill,  and  brawn  of  the  whole  organiza- 
tion behind  a  decision. 

Even  the  general  manager  gets  his  orders  in  definite 
form.  He,  too,  is  given  to  understand  exactly  what  is 
expected  of  him.  Of  course,  "there  is  room  to  turn 
around,"  but  Mr.  Patterson  thinks  in  definite  terms.  He 
visions  what  he  wants  and  isn't  afraid  to  go  on  record. 
An  order  issued  by  the  board  of  directors  of  the  com- 
pany, just  before  A^r.  Patterson  was  to  sail  for  Europe, 
well  illustrates  the  idea: 


258         A  PAPER  OF  BRASS  TACKS 

"Ordered :  That  the  management  of  the  business  be 
turned  over  to  Mr.  Hugh  Chalmers  as  general  manager, 
etc. 

"Ordered:  That  the  duties  of  the  general  manager  shall 
be  as  follows : 

1.  To  assume  entire  responsibility  for  the  success  or 

failure  of  the  N.  C.  R.  Company. 

2.  To  increase  the  Company's  profits  by : 

a.  Increasing  sales. 

b.  Increasing  cash  on  hand. 

c.  Increasing  the  quality  of  our  force. 

d.  Decreasing  unnecessary  expense. 

e.  Decreasing  unfair  competition. 

f.  Decreasing  unjust  opposition. 

3.  To  find  the  sticking  point. 

4.  To  dictate  policies  and  teaching. 

5.  6,  7.  Usual  duties  of  a  general  manager. 

8.  To  arouse  enthusiasm. 

9.  To  plan  for  the  future. 

ID,  To  do  nothing  himself  which  he  can  get  others  to 
do  for  him." 

That  was  not  an  order,  either,  for  publication  only. 
Mr.  Patterson  was  quite  likely  when  he  returned  from 
Europe,  or  before,  to  ask  a  definite  report  on  each  item, 
even  from  his  general  manager.  Thus  the  same  prin- 
ciples of  efficiency  were  applied  from  the  president  down 
to  the  School  of  Messengers  (ofifice  boys). 

To  have  a  system  that  aimed  to  make  the  salesmen 
efficient  and  not  to  make  the  managers  so,  to  have  one 
for  them  and  none  for  the  office  and  manufacturing  forces, 
and  one  for  them  and  none  for  the  highest  officials,  would 
lead  to  that  lack  of  harmony,  that  lopsided  development 
which  mars  the  efficiency  of  many  organizations  and  in- 
duces that  lost  motion  which  was  foreign  to  Mr.  Patterson's 
conception  of  efficiency. 

Mr.  Patterson's  scheme  therefore  called  for  instruction, 
at  the  company  expense,  beginning  with  the  office  boys, 
through  factory,  office,  sales  force,  from  men  to  managers, 
to  executive  officials,  and  to  Mr.  Patterson. 


THE    SALES     MANUAL 


259 


The  Patterson  Way 

Who  taught  John  H.  Patterson? 

Right  there  we  get  the  vision  of  the  man.  Mr.  Patter- 
son makes  it  a  rule  to  study  conditions,  businesses,  men, 
systems,  books.  He  keeps  a  whole  staff  of  secretaries 
busy  keeping  track  of  the  world's  newest  and  best  things. 
The  bulletin  room  at  the  factory,  where  expert  investiga- 
tors are  constantly  analyzing  conditions,  organizations, 
books,  and  men,  is  an  inspiration  to  the  observer  of  the 
application  of  scientific  methods  in  observation. 

Mr.  Patterson  organizes  his  thinking  just  as  he  or- 
ganized his  doing.  He  is  constantly  going  to  school — ob- 
serving, reading,  thinking,  doing — getting  the  last  unit  of 
productive  energy  out  of  every  day. 


CHAPTER    XXII 

EXTENSION    OF    THE    SCHOOL    PLAN 

Put  into  the  school  what  you  expect  to  get  out  of  it. 

— T.  C.  VON  Stein. 

Net  Results  of  the  N.  C.  R.  School 

The  former  school  instructor,  R.  H.  Grant,  at  this 
writing,  sales  manager,  said  in  an  address  in  191 3: 

"From  1903  to  1908  our  policy  was  to  take  new  men 
who  had  been  successful  in  their  business  and  put  them  in 
the  school,  teach  them  and  then  put  them  in  the  field.  As 
a  result  of  this  plan  we  had  26.4  per  cent  who  made  good 
in  a  five  year  period ;  i.  e.,  we  retained  168  men  out  of  635 
whom  we  had  hired  on  that  basis.  Then  we  adopted  a 
new  policy  and  got  78  per  cent  of  successful  men;  in  other 
words,  out  of  684  men,  539  are  still  in  the  business. 

"What  changed  the  proposition?  A  very  simple  and 
practical  thing.  We  put  the  men  into  the  field  before  we 
put  them  into  the  school.  Some  men  do  not  like  our  busi- 
ness and  quit  before  they  get  to  the  school.  Some  we 
do  not  desire,  and  we  let  them  go  before  they  get  to  our 
school." 

The  Curtis  School 

The  same  principle  of  an  ante-school  test  is  applied  by 
the  office  school  of  the  Curtis  Publishing  Company  of 
Philadelphia,  having  from  900  to  1,200  office  employes. 
The  candidate  is  given  several  simple  educational  tests. 
If  favorable  marks  are  obtained,  the  candidate  is  put 
under  the  observation  of  teachers,  and  if  that  test  is 
passed,  the  candidate  goes  into  the  school  to  be  given 
instruction  in  the  manual  of  the  work  to  which  he  is  to 
be  assigned. 

260 


EXTENSION     OF    THE     SCHOOL    PLAN  26 1 

National  Cloak  and  Suit  School 

The  general  office  manager  of  the  National  Cloak  and 
Suit  Company,  New  York,  said: 
"Our  school  is  attended  by: 

I — New  employees  who  attend  school  to  learn  the  work 
for  which  they  are  engaged. 

2 — Old  employees  who  attend  to  perfect  their  knowl- 
edge of  their  work. 

3 — Old  employees  who  attend  to  learn  a  new  subject 
(being  ready  for  promotion)." 

All  the  work  is  manualized.  Each  position  in  the 
office  has  its  manual;  i.  e.,  standard  practice  instructions, 
as  it  would  be  called  in  factory  parlance. 

This  company  has  worked  out  a  plan  of  efficiency 
whereby  each  clerk's  work  is  appraised  twice  a  year,  and 
the  efficiency  of  the  clerk  automatically  raises  her  salary. 

The  Larkin  School 

The  vice-president  of  the  Larkin  Company,  Buffalo, 
employing  from  750  to  950  in  its  offices,  says  of  their 
school  for  the  training  of  office  workers: 

"Our  office  school  confines  its  efforts  almost  entirely 
to  teaching  the  making  and  keeping  of  sales  records,  the 
writing  of  letters,  and  the  keeping  of  correspondence  re- 
lating to  sales.    This  includes,  in  general : 

1.  Mastering  official  abbreviations. 

2.  Use  of  office  manual. 

3.  Knowledge  of  the  physical  arrangements. 

4.  In  and  out  mail  routine. 

5.  Readjustment  of  orders. 

6.  Recording  and  billing. 

7.  Handling  order  files. 

8.  Routine   for   refunds   and   reimbursements ;    uniden- 

tified remittances,  due  bills,  and  rewards. 

9.  Handling  of   requests   to   catch   orders,   and   orders 

for  short  stock. 

10.  Credits  and  collections,  sales  bookkeeping. 

11.  Advertising  routine  in  sales  departments. 


262        A  PAPER  OF  BRASS  TACKS 

12.  Order    correspondence,     including    the    holding    of 

orders  for  credit  approval  and  for  information  of 
customers. 

13.  Reading  of  mail  and  preparing  it  for  answer. 

14.  Answering  damage  complaints,  shortage  complaints, 

and  non-deliveries. 

15.  Handling  correspondence  file  and  other  files." 

The  outline  is  given  here  to  show  how  many  things  in 
an  office  routine  can  be  standardized. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  every  manager  does  have  some 
ways  of  "handhng  things,"  but  no  one  in  his  employ  is 
sure  how  he  is  going  to  apply  his  way  at  any  given  time. 
He  does  not  know  himself.  The  exceptional  man  keeps 
true  to  what  he  thinks  is  a  good  way,  with  the  aid  of 
people  who  have  "grown  into  his  way." 

They  might  have  been  just  as  proficient  in  six  weeks 
as  they  now  are  in  six  months  and  more  frequently  in  six 
years  if  the  manager  had  applied  a  bit  of  his  school  ex- 
perience to  everyday  life. 

The  fixing  of  selling,  or  any  other  standards  for  that 
matter,  calls  for  nothing  but  the  finding  of  those  certain 
facts  which  are  common  to  all  practice  of  similar  results. 

Applied   Psychology   of   the  Victor   Talking    Machine 
Company 

The  Victor  Talking  Machine  Company  says  several 
things  in  a  little  pamphlet  for  distribution  among  the  re- 
tail salesmen,  which  give  an  idea  of  how  applied  psy- 
chology is  penetrating  the  fields  of  business: 

"Think  Victrolas  and  you  will  sell  them. 

"The  whole  secret  is  in  your  mental  attitude. 

"If  you  are  a  Victor  dealer  and  not  enthusiastic  over 
the  Victrola,  your  mind  is  not  in  the  right  attitude.  Your 
eyes  are  not  wide  open.    You  are  not  thinking  high  enough. 

"A  man  does  business  and  sells  goods  on  the  same  plan 
on  which  he  thinks.  If  you  think  of  the  Victor  as  a  toy, 
you'll  do  a  toy  business.    If  you  think  of  it  as  a  mere  talk- 


EXTENSION  OF  THE  SCHOOL  PLAN     263 

ing-machine,  you'll  do  a  talking-machine  business  only. 
But  if  you  think  of  it  for  what  it  really  is,  as  an  exponent 
of  the  true  art  of  music,  then  you  will  step  up  and  get 
your  share  of  the  Victrola  sales. 

"Don't  let  today  go  by  without  thinking  seriously  on 
this  subject. 

"You  have  the  instrument,  the  prestige,  the  endorse- 
ment ;  you  have  the  backing  of  the  Victor  Company  with  its 
high-class  advertising,  appealing  to  the  most  refined  and 
critical  class ;  you  have  everything  except  possibly  the  right 
thought.  Have  you  got  that?  If  not,  just  get  that  into 
your  mind.  Give  your  enthusiasm  a  chance  to  break  out 
and  warm  up  other  people.  And  you  will  sell  all  the 
Victrolas  you  want  to." 

Globe- Wernicke  Doctrine 

The  Globe-Wernicke  Company  apparently  believes  in 
the  same  scientific  principles.  They  recently  sent  an  article 
to  the  retailers : 

"It  is  necessary  for  the  mind  to  lie  fallow  once  in  a 
while,  simply  to  get  into  a  receptive  or  impressionable  con- 
dition ;  otherwise  the  gray  matter  becomes  hardened  and 
difficult  to  till. 

"Then  again,  a  mind  that  only  raises  the  same  crop  of 
ideas  year  after  year,  is  not  the  kind  of  intellect  you  and  I 
care  to  cultivate. 

"We  desire  something  broader  and  more  humane,  a 
greater  diversity  that  permits  us  to  see  life  from  many 
viewpoints  and  at  many  angles. 

"The  unfettered  mind  is  likewise  the  imaginative  mind, 
and  today  it  is  the  imaginative,  creative  mind  that  suc- 
ceeds in  business. 

"As  you  look  around  your  store  today,  has  it  the  same 
atmosphere,  the  same  earmarks  that  it  had  ten,  fifteen,  or 
twenty  years  ago? 

"Then  it  is  time  to  get  out. 

"But  don't  make  the  mistake  that  the  necessary  inspira- 
tion for  improvement  can  be  gained  by  attending  a  market 
or  convention. 

"An  exchange  of  ideas  is  all  right  and  speeches  are  all 
right,  but  even  more  important  is  to  get  all  preconceived 
notions  about  business  out  of  your  mind  by  complete  re- 
laxation and  change  of  thought." 


264         A  PAPER  OF  BRASS  TACKS 

So  two  great  organizations,  conspicuously  successful, 
subscribe  to  the  great  principles  of  efficiency — thinking,  test- 
ing, formulating,  applying,  studying,  absorbing,  standardiz- 
ing— and  follow  Mr.  Patterson  in  the  scientific  application 
of  the  principles. 

Investigations  That  Mislead 

Even  physicians  take  a  good  deal  for  granted  and  fre- 
quently prescribe  on  suspicion.  Managers  give  investiga- 
tions into  the  incompetent  hands  of  men  who,  neither  by 
education,  training,  or  temperament,  are  capable  of  a  scien- 
tific handling  of  their  investigations  either  as  to  facts  or 
conclusions,  and  so  are  lured  to  disaster  by  reports,  of  whose 
inefficiency  they  never  have  the  slightest  suspicion. 

It  is  only  within  the  past  twenty  years  that  we  have  had 
any  enlightened  acceptance  of  the  idea  that  accounting  audits 
by  outsiders  are  business-like.  Even  today  these  audits  are 
made,  not  with  the  idea  of  checking  efficiency,  but  only  of 
checking  accounting  methods.  Some  people  think,  how- 
ever, that  if  the  audit  shows  that  their  profit  and  loss  state- 
ment is  correct,  it  is  a  guarantee  of  the  efficiency  of  the 
management.  Of  course  it  isn't  anything  of  the  sort.  One 
line  of  product  may  be  losing  money  and  another  carrying 
that  loss  and  paying  dividends  in  addition.  Accounting 
audits  do  not  check  the  factory,  sales,  or  office  efficiency, 
for  accounting  auditors  seldom  know  when  the  sales  practice 
or  factory  methods  are  weak. 

Facing  the  Facts 

We  must  look  facts  in  the  face — that  is  our  crying,  yell- 
ing necessity.  We  must  fight  to  find  facts,  in  order  to  build 
up  the  truth.  Darwin,  in  explaining  his  method  of  obtain- 
ing the  facts  on  which  to  base  his  conclusions,  gives  us  an 
idea  of  what  has  been  done  to  get  at  facts  in  the  sciences. 


EXTENSION  OF  THE  SCHOOL  PLAN 


265 


Darwin  had  the  whole  realm   of  nature  to  classify  and 
arrange.     A  business  man  has  but  his  business. 
The  great  naturalist  says : 

"By  collecting  all  facts  which  bore  in  any  way  on  the 
variation  of  animals  and  plants  under  domestication  and 
nature,  some  light  might  perhaps  be  thrown  on  the  whole 
subject.  My  first  notebook  was  opened  in  July,  1837.  I 
worked  on  true  Baconian  principles,  and,  without  any 
theory,  collected  facts  on  a  wholesale  scale,  more  especially 
with  respect  to  domesticated  productions.  *  *  *  When  I 
see  the  list  of  books  of  all  kinds  which  I  read  and  ab- 
stracted, including  whole  series  of  Journals  and  Transac- 
tions, I  am  surprised  at  my  own  industry.  I  soon  perceived 
that  selection  was  the  keystone  of  man's  success  in  making 
useful  races  of  animals  and  plants.  But  how  selection 
could  be  applied  to  an  organism  living  in  a  state  of  nature 
remained  for  some  time  a  mystery  to  me." 

The  prime  requisite,  therefore,  is  to  find  the  facts,  be 
sure  of  them,  and  then  let  the  facts  lead  you  where  they 
must.  You  must  make  your  personal  preferences  step 
aside;  you  must  forget  yourself;  you  must  wish  with  all 
your  heart  to  find  the  truth,  no  matter  how  hostile  the  con- 
clusions may  be  to  your  own  idea  of  what  the  truth  should 
be.    Be  fair  to  yourself  and  to  your  work. 

If  you  want  to  learn  whether  you  are  making  money  on 
any  particular  thing,  look  for  the  truth  about  it — but  be 
sure  it  is  the  absolute  truth,  for  that  is  the  only  way  you 
can  ever  make  money.  It  is  a  baffling  mystery  why  there  are 
so  many  business  men  who  make  absolutely  no  effort  and 
thereby  refuse  to  know  the  whole  truth  about  their  work 
or  business. 

The  scientific  standards  of  truth  enforce  continual  self- 
criticism. 

There  is  no  place  for  "maybes"  or  "almosts,"  or  in- 
definite approximations,  but  only  for  the  facts,  the  bald,  raw, 
bare,  unblushing  facts. 


266  A    PAPER    OF    BRASS    TACKS 

The  Spread  of  Efficiency 

As  education  grows  we  believe  less  in  signs,  omens,  in- 
spiration, and  luck.  To  the  ignorant  such  a  purpose  appears 
subversive  of  their  treasured  personality  and  individuality, 
just  as  if  the  trained  horse  didn't  have  as  much  "individ- 
uality" as  the  half-wild  bucking  broncho  of  the  plains. 

As  Renan  was  "a.  dull  duffer"  to  a  sapheaded  young 
English  nobleman  and  as  Sainte-Beuve  was  a  "stupid  old 
senator"  to  a  beautiful  actress  who  had  heard  him  at  a 
dinner  where  she  had  been  eclipsed,  so  the  great  thinker  in 
all  affairs  of  life  is  a  "highbrow,"  or  an  "uninteresting  jay" 
in  the  eye  of  the  ignorant. 

In  spite  of  this,  however,  the  gospel  of  efficiency  spreads, 
because  the  youthful  mind  and  heart  of  Hope  have  come  to 
understand  that  it  is  the  purpose  of  efficiency  standards  to 
discover  sensibilities  and  to  deepen  them,  to  encourage  the 
-incapable  as  well  as  the  capable,  and  to  separate  the  pro- 
ducers from  the  non-producers,  the  thoughtless  from  the 
thoughtful,  the  weak  from  the  strong,  the  opportunist  from 
the  systematic,  the  narrow  from  the  broad,  the  deep  from 
the  shallow.  It  is  the  purpose,  in  making  these  distinctions, 
to  make  gains  for  both :  In  other  words,  while  efficiency 
calls  for  a  wise  selection  of  material,  it  will  make  all  con- 
ditions better  fit  men — by  the  simple  process  of  keeping  men 
from  putting  themselves  in  the  wrong  place. 

This  is  surely  a  problem  practical  enough  to  be  recog- 
nized as  important  by  the  most  sordid  of  those  minds  which 
dwell  with  thoughts  fastened  to  the  earth. 


PART  VII 

Who  Says  So? 


CHAPTER    XXIII 

THE  ONE-MAN  FALLACY 

The  greatest  present  need  is  an  antidote  for  the  unwilling- 
ness of  men  to  profit  by  the  previous  experience  of  others. 
It  would  be  amusing,  were  it  not  so  expensive,  to  watch 
the  gropings  of  many  corporation  oMcers  for  methods  to 
test  efficiency.  Ignorant  of  fundamental  principles,  intolerant 
of  outside  suggestion,  unable  to  detect  the  analogy  in  other 
undertaliings,  they  repeat  the  expensive  experiments  of 
the  past. — Charles  DeLano  Hine. 

The  Walsh  Tragedy 

Three  important  Chicago  banking  institutions  were 
forced  to  close  their  doors  on  the  i8th  of  December, 
1905.  The  aggregate  deposits  were  close  to  $26,000,000 
and  the  capital  was  $1,600,000.  They  represented  the 
banking  interests  of  John  R.  Walsh. 

Back  of  the  simple  announcement  of  that  huge  fail- 
ure, which  brought  consternation  to  the  banking  inter- 
ests of  the  West,  was  the  slow  evolution  of  an  inevitable 
catastrophe  from  the  activities  of  a  now  disappearing  sys- 
tem of  one-man  banking. 

John  R.  Walsh  was  the  fine  flower  of  individualism 
carried  to  that  extent  which  made  the  laws  of  the  Medes 
and  Persians  seem  like  the  time-serving  of  a  Machiavelli; 
he  was  the  embodiment  of  the  one-man  idea;  he  was  a 
type  by  no  means  confined  to  banking,  for  his  forceful, 
active,  aggressive  individualism  is  the  pioneering  power 
of  all  new  countries.  The  strength  of  the  one-man  sys- 
tem, when  practiced  by  the  rare  genius,  is  the  source  of 
its  weakness  in  the  hands  of  the  man  of  commonplace 

269 


270  WHO    SAYS    SO? 

talents.  It  is  the  rock  on  which  so  many  successful  busi- 
nesses split  when  they  grow  into  larger  things.  Such  a 
man  is  a  strenuous  type,  because  he  has  a  big  capacity  for 
work.  But  he  lacks  efficiency  in  management  in  the  sense 
of  accomplishing  a  result  at  a  minimum  expenditure  of 
time,  labor,  and  money. 

Autocratic  Rule 

A  man  who  studied  his  methods  said:  "When  John 
R.  Walsh  failed  to  do  a  necessary  thing  his  system  made 
no  attempt  to  overcome  the  fault,  and  it  wasn't  done. 
If  he  forgot  an  important  detail  or  if  he  misinterpreted 
the  development  of  a  line  of  action,  he  had  no  standards 
by  which  to  set  himself  right;  he  had  no  assistants;  he 
was  the  boss.  It  was  easy  for  him  to  conceive  the  idea 
that  his  way  was  always  right  and  his  judgment  infallible, 
and  in  consequence  his  decisions  admitted  no  appeal. 
His  way  was  always  right,  his  word  was  law,  and,  of 
course,  that  was  a  breeder  of  violent  personal  prejudices. 
Criticism  among  his  people  of  anything  he  said,  did,  or 
thought  was  lese-majesty  to  be  swiftly  punished  by  banish- 
ment. His  organization  represented  the  perfect  fruition 
of  the  'get-out-or-get-in-line'  policy,  the  'line'  being 
the  personal  judgment  of  John  R.  Walsh.  Loyalty  to  his 
institution  was  tested  by  how  well  you  did  the  bad  as 
well  as  the  good  things  that  Walsh  wanted  done.  He 
was  the  beginning  and  the  end,  the  top  and  the  bottom 
of  the  commercial  bank,  the  savings  bank,  and  the  trust 
company.  No  loans  were  placed,  no  favors  granted,  un- 
less he  personally  approved  them." 

A  writer  told  this  story  soon  after  the  failure:  "A 
man  who  had  $700  in  the  bank  went  to  Walsh  for  a 
ninety-day  loan  of  $1,000;  that  is,  he  walked  into  the  bank, 
saw  the  cashier,  laid  down  an  insurance  policy  for  $5,000 


THE    ONE-MAN     FALLACY 


271 


on  which  the  premiums  had  been  paid  for  eight  years, 
and  asked  that  a  thousand  dollars  be  advanced  upon  it. 
Now  in  all  that  vast  institution,  with  its  exquisite  paint- 
ings of  historic  Chicago  scenes,  there  was  not  an  individ- 
ual who  dared  to  say  on  his  own  responsibility  without 
first  securing  the  consent  of  Mr.  Walsh,  that  the  loan  could 
be  made. 

"A  $i5-a-week  clerk  could  have  decided  the  matter  on 
the  security  offered,  but  he  would  have  lost  his  position. 
The  would-be  borrower  waited  two  days  before  he  could 
reach  Mr.  Walsh  personally,  and  then  the  loan  was  made." 

The  Why  of  Walsh's  Failure 

The  reason  for  Walsh's  failure  was  thus  given  by  the 
President  of  the  Illinois  Trust  and  Savings  Bank  of 
Chicago: 

"It  was  really  due  to  the  effort  of  one  man  to  carry 
too  much  without  the  co-operation  of  the  wisdom  and 
judgment  of  others." 

There  is  the  reason;  the  result  was  that  Mr.  Walsh 
was  financing  too  many  outside  enterprises;  he  had  taken 
on  too  many  things  for  his  capital  of  brains,  time,  and 
money. 

He  believed  that  he  could  do  anything. 

John  R.  Walsh  was  a  success,  in  the  popular  sense, 
for  a  long  time.  The  success  of  the  Walsh  banks  brought 
comfort  to  the  rule-of-thumb  man  who  pointed  to  him 
as  the  great  exemplar  of  "the  man  who  did  things."  The 
growing  complexities  of  modern  business,  the  inflexible, 
changeless,  iron  law  of  life  were  too  much  for  John  R. 
Walsh.  He  failed  and  went  to  jail,  and  was  hastened  to 
his  grave,  because  he  observed  neither  the  laws  of  efficient 
living  nor  of  society.     He  paid  the  penalty. 

The  one  great  principle  of  efficiency  ignored  was  co- 


272 


WHO    SAYS    SO? 


operation  with  the  wisdom  of  others.    Napoleon  failed  in  the 
end  for  the  same  reason. 

In  his  early  life  Napoleon  sought  Truth,  eagerly,  pas- 
sionately, and  fought  always  on  her  side,  but  in  later  life  he 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  Truth  was  on  his  side. 

The  Marshall  Field  Way 

If  John  R.  Walsh  had  been  scientific  instead  of  in- 
dividualistic, he  would  have  realized  that  one  man  couldn't 
know  everything.  It  has  been  given  to  no  man  in  the 
world's  history  to  know  so  much  about  everything  or 
anything  that  he  could  Hve  a  life  replete  with  success  and 
never  listen  to  counsel.  The  president  of  another  national 
bank  of  Chicago  at  the  time  of  the  Walsh  failure,  in  de- 
veloping this  principle  of  efficient  business  management 
from  the  story  of  the  failure,  pointed  out  the  difference 
between  the  business  methods  of  Walsh  and  Marshall 
Field: 

"Perhaps  no  more  glowing  tribute  to  the  success 
of  the  late  Marshall  Field  can  be  paid  than  the  fact  that 
he  drew  into  his  business  the  brightest  brains  that  he 
could  command,  and  used  their  judgments  in  forming 
his  own.  He  always  made  use  of  practical  suggestions 
and  improvements  in  business  methods,  and  his  won- 
derful establishment  was  the  result.  This  rule  applies 
rigidly  to  banking.  Every  individual  connected  with  a 
bank  should  be  made  to  feel  that  it  is  within  his  power 
to  contribute  something  to  its  success.  It  may  be  by 
contributing  to  its  system;  by  bringing  in  new  busi- 
ness; by  discovering  new  fields  for  investment.  To 
continue  to  run  a  bank  on  one-idea,  theory  or  will,  is 
no  longer  possible." 

The  same  principle  which  guided  Marshall  Field  was 
voiced  by  Andrew  Carnegie  when  he  said:  "I  can  choose 
others  to  do  work  better  than  I  can  do  it."  Wanamaker 
has  often  said  the  same  thing,  and  in  his  first  years  actu- 
ally paid  some  of  his  expert  heads  of  departments  more 


THE    ONE-MAN    FALLACY 


273 


than  he  was  drawing  out  of  the  business  for  himself.  On 
the  contrary,  a  certain  manufacturer  of  a  medical  specialty- 
said,  recently:  "I  want  an  advertising  man  who  thinks 
as  I  do."  This  stupidity  was  offered  as  a  contribution 
to  the  philosophy  of  management.  This  same  proprietor 
forbade  his  advertising  manager  to  join  any  association 
or  club  because  "he  didn't  want  his  methods  discussed." 
Of  course  no  self-respecting  advertising  man  can  have 
anything  to  do  with  such  a  manager. 

A  Man  Who  Couldn't  Grow 

In  talking  to  an  old  friend,  whose  business  bore  evi- 
dence of  increased  prosperity,  he  said  to  me,  "As  long  as 
I  had  a  little  three-man-and-a-girl  business  I  made  money; 
but  now  I  have  nearly  one  hundred  people,  I  feel  poorer 
than  I  ever  felt  in  my  life."  Like  many  executives,  he 
had  organized  his  business  in  its  small  beginnings  on  the 
basis  of  himself.  All  its  system,  all  its  buying  and  selling 
in  the  old  days,  flowed  through  his  careful  hands.  Just  as 
soon  as  he  had  to  delegate  authority,  the  waste  com- 
menced. He  did  not  know  the  mechanics  of  big  business, 
he  had  no  way  of  putting  his  personal  experience  to  work 
to  guide  others.  When  he  had  a  little  business,  he  had 
employed  little  men;  he  had  not  learned  how  to  employ 
big  men  when  it  came  to  be  a  big  business.  He  didn't 
get  men  who  were  as  good  in  buying  as  he  had  been. 
Hence,  goods  were  not  bought  at  the  right  prices  to  make 
an  easy  market,  and  often  the  wrong  goods  were  pur- 
chased and  had  to  be  sold  at  a  sacrifice.  He  didn't  get 
a  credit  man  who  made  it  a  point  to  know  as  much  about 
each  customer  as  he  had  done,  and  credits  were  badly 
handled.  He  didn't  go  among  the  customers  as  he  had 
used  to  do,  with  a  smile  and  a  cheery  "good  morning"; 
his  customers  had  become  ledger  pages  to  him;  the  mag- 


274  ^HO     SAYS     SO? 

netic  attraction  of  his  individuality  had  been  lost  to  the 
business. 

The  incompetence  that  bought  wrong-,  and  then  ex- 
tended credit  where  it  should  not,  and  restricted  it  where 
it  should  have  been  freely  given,  made  reports  that  did 
not  hit  the  mark;  and  the  old  boss  had  no  way  of  know- 
ing the  right  from  the  wrong.  To  save  himself,  the 
whole  business  was  run  on  a  pinch-penny  basis.  Present- 
day  profits  were  being  made  by  pinching  progress  out  of 
the  business.  As  a  result  of  a  six-hour  heart-to-heart 
talk,  my  friend  sent  for  an  accountant  and  a  merchandis- 
ing specialist.  In  four  weeks  he  was  made  to  realize  how 
badly  he  had  been  treating  his  business.  He  had  been 
working  on  the  try-and-fail  idea;  when  he  tried  a  thing, 
he  kept  at  it  until  it  failed.  He  got  no  standards  of  ex- 
perience and  no  principles  from  these  experiences.  If 
under  his  practical  way  of  looking  at  things  a  condition 
arose,  he  tried  to  remember  what  he  had  done  before; 
he  had  no  principle  to  follow.  It  was  a  matter  of  memory, 
of  management  by  imitation.  This  is  typical  of  hundreds 
of  cases  where  men  do  not  realize  that  they  must  buy  better 
men  than  themselves  to  do  those  things  that  have  grown 
larger  than  their  knowledge. 

How  Others  Can  Help 

In  another  case,  a  manufacturer  upon  whom  T  urged 
the  necessity  of  having  an  expert  look  over  the  advertis- 
ing, which  had  been  sadly  mismanaged,  said,  'T  can't  see 
how  an  outsider  can  come  here  and  tell  me  how  to  ad- 
vertise. What  does  he  know  of  my  business?"  I  said 
to  him,  "You  didn't  build  your  house,  did  you?  You 
didn't  make  your  Steinway  piano,  you  didn't  paint  the 
Corot  that  adorns  your  walls,  nor  weave  the  Kermanshah 
that  covers  the  dining-room  floor.     Yet  these  things  are 


THE    ONE-MAN     FALLACY 


275 


yours  because  they  express  in  some  way  the  intangible 
perfections  or  imperfections  of  your  own  heart,  and  will, 
and  mind — your  choice.  This  advertising  will  reflect 
your  personality,  if  you  can  get  the  right  kind  of  an  out- 
side expert,  because  he  will  get  the  things  out  of  the 
business  that  are  you  and  that  are  yours,  and  will  inter- 
pret them  in  a  way  the  public  mind  can  grasp,  know,  and 
believe." 

Advertising 

Experts  are  looking  for  the  vital  principle  embodied 
in  a  course  of  business  growth.  They  are  not  looking 
for  a  chance  to  do  something  that  will  permit  them  to 
do  again  what  they  did  for  another.  In  advertising  a 
commodity,  in  the  use  of  which  a  public  needs  to  be  edu- 
cated, I  never  think  of  the  article  or  how  it  is  built,  but 
I  think  of  what  it  will  do  for  retailers — for  a  certain  class 
of  retailers — and  then  I  proceed  to  tell  those  retailers  of 
what  it  has  done.  I  do  not  take  the  same  stories  pos- 
sibly nor  use  the  same  means  to  reach  them,  as  I  did  for 
something  else  I  wished  to  sell  to  retailers. 

The  principle  is:  Purchasers  more  often  buy  an  article 
for  its  possible  use  than  for  the  mere  possession  of  it. 

The  methods  of  application  may  be  as  numerous  as 
the  sands  of  the  sea,  but  the  principle  is  always  the  same. 

The  Concrete  Case  Delusion 

But  most  practical  men  do  not  see  principles — which 
they  sneeringly  refer  to  as  ''generalities" — they  can  see 
nothing  but  a  concrete  case,  the  most  dangerous,  insidious 
ignis  fatmis  of  the  business  world. 

The  practical  man  has  a  headache  from  an  upset 
stomach  and  takes  a  bit  of  soda  and  water;  he  is  relieved. 
I  have  a  headache  from  eye-strain  and  take  soda  and  water 


276  WHO    SAYS    SO? 

at  the  practical  man's  urgent  request,  "because  it  always 
relieves  my  headaches." 

Of  course  I  retain  my  headache. 

There  are  lots  of  remedies  for  sour  stomach  given  to  a 
business  suffering  from  eye-strain  by  "practical  men  who 
have  no  time  for  theories." 

The  following  editorial  from  a  technical  journal  re- 
flects the  attitude  of  the  average  practical  man  toward 
scientific  principles: 

"A  confusion  of  ideas  and  a  fallacy  of  argument 
appear  in  Mr.  Warren  S.  Stone's  address  before  the 
National  Civic  Federation,  at  its  recent  conference. 
Mr.  Stone  is  quoted  as  asking,  as  to  an  advocate  of 
efficiency: 

"'Has  he  ever  shoveled  coal  into  a  locomotive? 
No;  and  yet  he  makes  the  assertion  that  the  railroads 
waste  half  their  coal.  I  have  shoveled  more  coal  into 
locomotives  than  could  be  piled  on  two  of  your  city 
blocks.* 

"To  measure  a  man's  knowledge  of  possible  econ- 
omy in  fuel  combustion  by  the  tonnage  of  coal  he  has 
shoveled  is  a  good  deal  like  testing  the  skill  of  an  archi- 
tectural engineer  by  the  thousands  of  brick  he  has  laid, 
or  better,  taken  up  the  ladder.  Has  he  ever  carried  a 
hod?  No;  and  yet  he  asserts  that  steel  construction  is 
more  efficient  than  brick! 

"There  have  been  many  betterments  in  the  effi- 
ciency of  fuel  combustion  in  stationary  steam  plants 
during  the  past  twenty-five  years,  and  the  best  today 
probably  saves  half  the  coal  used  in  the  good  average 
practice  of  a  quarter-century  ago.  The  waste  of  fuel 
was  due  to  imperfect  apparatus,  appliances,  methods, 
knowledge — not  to  willfulness  of  the  firemen.  None  of 
the  betterments  was  made  by  the  men  who  shoveled 
coal  through  the  fire  doors.  None  of  them  has  in- 
creased the  labor  of  the  men  who  shoveled  the  coal. 
Many  of  them  have  lightened  that  labor.  None  of 
them  has  lessened  the  number  of  jobs  for  firemen  want- 
ing work.  On  the  contrary,  the  reduced  cost  of  power 
has  increased  enormously  its  use  and  the  number  of 
firemen   employed. 


THE    ONE-MAN     FALLACY  277 

"If  similar  improvements  had  been  made  in  loco- 
motive firing,  so  that  one  city  block  full  of  coal  could 
do  the  work  of  two,  Mr.  Stone's  labor  of  shoveling 
would  have  been  only  half  as  exhausting,  while  his  pay 
would  have  been  the  same.  The  other  block  full  of 
coal  would  have  been  conserved  for  productive  uses, 
employing  other  men.  Mr.  Stone's  job  would  have  paid 
just  the  same,  and  some  other  man  would  have  got  a 
job  at  equal  pay  shoveling  the  other  half  of  the  coal. 
The  value  of  that  second  city  block  of  coal  would  have 
remained  in  the  railroad  treasury  to  do  useful  work, 
employing  more  men.  It  is  hard  to  see  how  even  from 
the  most  selfish  interests  Mr.  Stone  can  so  savagely 
insist  upon  shoveling  that  second  city  block  full  of  coal, 
and  refusing  to  have  any  one  save  it  or  save  him  from 
the  50  per  cent  of  useless,  profitless  waste." 

The  Man  Outside 

This  typical  so-called  "practical"  attitude  among  many 
business  men  has  done  more  to  retard  the  legitimate 
progress  of  business  than  any  such  handicaps  as  lack  of 
capital,  fluctuations  of  credit,  or  indifferent  demand.  It 
has  been  determined  that  not  five  per  cent  of  the  in- 
creased efficiencies  in  business  have  come  from  inside  the 
organization  with  which  the  business  started.  The  great- 
est progress  has  either  come  from  the  permanent  importa- 
tion of  talent  that  developed  entirely  outside  the  business 
or  from  the  employment,  for  a  greater  or  less  period  of 
time,  of  outside  experts  or  scientists,  who  have  brought 
to  some  particular  problem  or  part  of  the  business  man- 
agement a  scientifically  tested  and  adjusted  experience. 

"Do  you  realize,"  asked  a  president  of  a  corporation 
recently,  "that  no  large  corporation  has  ever  been  revo- 
lutionized from  the  inside?"  I  am  told  that  Mr.  Rocke- 
feller rarely  went  to  the  oil  fields;  Mr.  Carnegie  knew  little 
about  steel;  Mr.  John  H.  Patterson  spends  months  in 
Europe  away  from  his  huge  Dayton  plant;  Mr.  James 
Gordon    Bennett   manages    The   Herald,    as    Mr.    Joseph 


278  WHO    SAYS    SO? 

Pulitzer  managed  The  World,  from  abroad.  Mr.  John 
Wanamaker  spends  much  of  his  time  abroad,  as  also  did 
Marshall  Field;  and  so  does  a  Boston  department  store 
proprietor  who  says  that  he  must  study  other  businesses 
at  least  three  months  every  year  in  order  to  manage  his 
own  business  properly  the  other  nine. 

The  great  corporations  now  send  their  department 
heads  away  on  educational  trips  to  look  over  other  plants, 
study  other  businesses,  get  ideas  for  use  in  the  home 
business.  A  soap  manufacturer  from  Indianapolis  found 
an  excellent  idea  for  his  shipping  department  in  a  Troy 
shirt  concern.  The  little  concerns,  in  the  second  and 
third  generation  of  family  ownership,  rarely  do  this  sort 
of  thing.  The  new  ideas  in  management  rarely  come  from 
such  organizations,  either. 

An  engineer  asked  the  other  day: 

"How  long  do  you  suppose  it  would  have  taken  for 
the  average  engineer,  operating  a  boiler  in  a  plant,  to 
find  out  that  by  the  distillation  of  bituminous  coal  in 
a  by-product  oven,  there  would  be  obtained  sufficient 
gas  and  tar  to  produce  ample  power  in  internal  com- 
bustion engines,  while  leaving  the  fixed  carbon  in  the 
form  of  coke  for  metallurgical  and  household  purposes, 
besides  saving  the  sulphate  of  ammonia  for  use  as  a 
fertilizer,   and  avoiding  all   smoke  production?" 

Yet  Dr.  Rudolph  Diesel  found  out  all  about  it,  and 
Doctor  Diesel  was  just  a  mere  scientist  who  was  not  par- 
ticularly interested  in  whether  or  not  engineers  used  the 
results  of  his  investigations. 

But,  for  some  hundreds  of  years,  we  have  been  buying 
coal  by  a  mere  quantity  test,  the  crudest  and  most  in- 
efficient method,  because  it  has  been  only  within  the  past 
few  years  that  we  have  made  any  step  to  rate  coal  by  its 
calorific  power,  and  even  now,  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
tons  of  inefficient  coal  are  being  paid  for  by  our  factories 


THE    ONE-MAN     FALLACY 


279 


as  though  it  were  efficient,  and  they  will  continue  to  be 
paid  for  as  long  as  the  rule-of-thumb  men  are  at  the 
head  of  factories  yelling  for  tariff  protection  rather  than 
for  the  protection  of  a  more  perfect  knowledge  of  what 
they  are  trying  to  do. 

Don't  Jump  in  the  Dark 

The  important  things  we  must  keep  in  mind  in  testing 
any  line  of  our  business  activities  are: 

First — Is  the  present  method  inefficient?  How  do  I 
know?  By  comparison  with  present  experience  in 
my  shop  or  business,  or  by  comparison,  scientifically 
tested  for  accuracy  and  conditional  environment, 
with  exactly  similar  requirements  in  another  busi- 
ness or  other  businesses  which  may  be  entirely  dis- 
similar in  product  or  purpose  from  mine? 

Second — If  a  condition  needs  readjusting  or  toning  up 
for  a  gain  in  efficiency,  zvhat  should  be  done,  and 
zvho  says  so?  The  most  important  thing  is  the  last 
— who  says  so? 

Henry  O.  Havemeyer,  late  president  of  the  American 
Sugar  Refining  Company  said,  a  few  days  before  his 
death: 

"Business  men  fail  because  there  are  a  lot  of  them 
who  are  fools.  We  are  all  born  fools,  but  some  of  us 
educate  ourselves  out  of  it. 

"There  are  two  influences  always  at  work  upon  a 
man;  one  urges  him  to  use  his  common  sense,  the  other 
urges  him  to  'jump  in  the  dark.'  They  don't  know  what 
they  are  doing  half  the  time.  They  guess  instead  of 
know.  They  are  fools  because  they  attempt  to  do  busi- 
ness without  knowing  it." 

It  was  rather  drastic  comment,  but  it  represents  the 
thought  of  a  big  man  who  had  grown  up;  and  we  do  not 


28o  WHO    SAYS    SO? 

have  to  be  unduly  pessimistic  as  to  the  quality  of  our 
fellow-men  to  be  convinced  that  Mr.  Havemeyer's  words, 
"guess  instead  of  know"  cover  the  point  of  failure  for 
most  of  us. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  one-man  business  is  in  constant 
danger  of  getting  beyond  its  depth  in  strange  waters. 


CHAPTER    XXIV 

RATIONAL  BUSINESS  METHODS 

/  believe  that  the  great  majority  of  executives  in  this 
country  are  not  more  than  twenty-five  per  cent  efficient, 
measured  by  the  standard  of  performance  of  the  com- 
paratively few  really   efficient  ones. — Melville   W.   Mix. 

Think,  Then  Act 

Art  is  long,  for  we  live  with  so  little  knowledge  of  the 
real  value  of  what  our  fellow-man  has  done.  We  are  so 
loyal  to  the  old,  old  "try  and  fail"  process  of  finding  out 
things  that  art  is  too  long  for  us  and  time  spins  our  brief 
allotment  with  nothing  but  disappointment  at  the  end. 
It  is  therefore  vitally  important  in  following  the  counsel 
of  another  that  you  know  that  he  knows  how  to  apply 
the  efficiency  principle  to  men  as  well  as  to  things.  As 
already  stated  in  previous  chapters,  the  first  requisite  is 
to  think  for  yourself,  and  after  you  have  thought  through 
things  into  some  rules  of  the  game,  test  your  application 
of  these  rules  by  the  use-standards  of  common  sense. 
After  you  have  reduced  all  to  use,  be  open-minded  to  the 
experience  of  everybody  and  keep  your  rules  in  constant 
revision,  while  maintaining  a  loyal  singleness  of  purpose 
towards  the  whole  gospel  of  efficiency.  After  you  have 
decided  on  the  thing  to  do,  be  loyal  to  that  conclusion 
and  put  it  to  ivork.  I  hope  we  have  realized  by  now  that 
the  practice  of  each  part  of  this  gospel  must  include  every 
other  part. 

The  Purchase  of  Brains 

The  man  who  most  needs  guidance  is  the  man  who 
doesn't  know  it.     If  it  has  never  occurred  to  you  that  you 

281 


282  WHO     SAYS     SO? 

need  other  counsel  than  your  own  infinitesimally  small 
experience,  stop!  look!  listen!  Be  sure  that  you  do  not 
know;  or  better  still,  be  convinced  that  you  ought  to  find 
out.  John  H.  Hanan,  the  shoe  manufacturer  of  Brook- 
lyn, supported  the  same  principle  when  he  said,  "You 
will  always  find  that  the  successful  business  man  is  the 
individual  who  surrounds  himself  with  brainy  men.  He 
considers  the  quality  of  an  employe  of  greater  importance 
than  the  salary  paid.  He  is  willing  to  buy  brains.  He 
seeks  the  initiative  and  knowledge  of  others.  He  pur- 
chases men  who  build  up  an  organization  that  moves 
along  irresistibly." 

Napoleon,  w-hen  he  was  meeting  reverses  in  Spain  and 
when  he  was  compelled  to  give  his  entire  time  to  the 
diplomatic  difificulties  with  Austria,  cried  out  in  one  of 
his  dispatches:  "In  warfare  men  are  nothing;  a  man  is 
everything."  Most  of  us  will  admit  this  to  be  a  generality, 
but  did  you  ever  think  about  it  as  a  principle  applicable 
to  you  and  your  business  today?  Did  you  ever  find  out 
how  many  men  in  your  establishment  could  qualify  as 
"brainy  men"  ? 

Men  are  measured  by  two  things — initiative  and  judg- 
ment. How  many  men  of  initiative  and  judgment  have 
you?  How  many  of  the  men  in  your  establishment  have 
started  anything  on  their  own  initiative,  or  have  suc- 
cessfully carried  through  with  efficiency  and  profit  any- 
thing anybody  else  initiated?  Have  you  any  system  by 
which  you  can  check  those  men  so  that  you  know  what 
they  have  done  well  and  what  they  haven't  done?  If  you 
haven't,  you  don't  know  your  business.  You  are  playing 
the  game  the  Walsh  way  and  not  the  Field  way. 

If  you  admit  that  there  is  a  difference  which  appears 
to  be  fundamental  and  vital,  between  the  one-man  method 
and  its  inevitable  application  of  the  "try-and-fail"  prin- 


RATIONAL    BUSINESS    METHODS  283 

ciple  of  success,  and  that  of  the  expert  helper  who  has 
won  many  notable  successes,  with  his  classified  results 
of  trials  and  failures,  may  it  not  be  a  good  idea  to  ex- 
amine the  principles  governing  the  use  of  experts?  I 
have  quoted  a  few  of  the  experts  whose  successes  have 
not  been  due  to  chance.  The  records  of  Havemeyer, 
Hill,  Morgan,  Carnegie,  Field,  and  Wanamaker  are  writ- 
ten on  the  commercial  pages  of  the  world.  They  need 
no  further  endorsement  than  your  own  good  sense;  or, 
for  that  matter,  the  try^-and-fail  standards.  Read  what 
they  have  done;  get  the  authentic  facts  of  their  daily 
work,  the  principles  and  results  of  their  systems  of 
management. 

Interchange  of  Experience 

All  business  is  feeling  the  necessity  of  more  accurate 
information  about  its  various  activities.  Within  the  past 
decade  the  interchange  of  credit  information  has  saved 
millions  of  dollars  to  wholesalers,  retailers,  and  manufac- 
turers. At  first  it  was  considered  the  acme  of  the  stupid 
idealism  of  the  theorist  to  ask  for  such  information.  We 
found  that  it  was  better  to  be  safe  with  our  competitor 
than  sorry  alone.  A  great  deal  of  the  experience  in  sales, 
advertising,  and  office  departments,  relative  to  the  man- 
agement and  selection  of  the  salesman,  the  use  of  media 
in  advertising,  and  the  handling  of  devices  in  the  office, 
could  be  exchanged  to  the  benefit  of  all.  This  is  being 
developed  in  spite  of  such  men  as  the  medical  specialty 
manufacturer  above  referred  to.  Under  present  business 
conditions  community  of  efTort  is  necessary,  for  many 
carefully  guarded  secrets  which  are  already  possessed  by 
more  than  one  concern,  are  being  independently  acquired. 
If  every  one  of  these  concerns  should  contribute  to  the 
common  stock  of  knowledge,  its  small  investment  would 


284  WHO    SAYS    SO? 

more  than  be  returned  by  what  it  would  get  from  all  other 
sources;  and  brains  would  have  a  chance  to  do  the  big 
things.* 

The  small  man,  whether  he  is  in  a  big  or  little  place, 
thinks  his  secret  method  is  so  vital  to  his  business  that  it 
would  be  suicide  to  divulge  it. 

The  amusing  part  is  that  the  "secret  method"  is  gen- 
erally the  common  property  of  almost  everybody  in  the 
business,  and  yet  everybody  is  busy  trying  to  prevent 
the  other  fellow  from  knowing  it!  Too  many  business 
men,  especially  in  the  large  centers,  treat  their  ideas  and 
systems  of  management  much  as  Portugal  formerly 
treated  her  dead  kings.  The  kings  of  Portugal  are  never 
buried.  The  coffin  of  the  last  dead  king  rests  on  the 
large  catafalque  in  the  old  Monastery  of  St.  Vincent  de 
Flora,  in  Lisbon,  until  the  death  of  the  next  king,  when 
it  is  removed  to  its  permanent  place  in  the  national  pan- 
theon. So  many  business  men  embalm  the  systems  and 
methods  of  their  business  in  the  winding  sheet  of  sacred 
tradition,  then  place  them  in  the  Holy  of  Holies  of  the 
Good  Old  Times,  but  never  put  them  away  finally  until 
some  other  system,  method,  or  principle  has  been  killed 
by  unsuccessful  practice,  when  it  takes  its  place  in  due 
rotation  of  form,  but  never  is  it  entirely  forgotten  by  the 
standpat  intellect. 

Mixed  Accounts 

An   expert   accountant    told   me   the   other  day   that 

mixed  accounts  were   the  bane  of  his   work  in  making 

audits   of  many   concerns.      Another   accounting   expert 

wrote  of  the  merchandise  account: 

"The  debit  side  usually  contains   (a)  goods  on  hand 
at  the  beginning  (say)   of  the  month,   (b)   goods  pur- 


•  As   the   Harvard   Graduate   School    of   Business   Administration    has    demon- 
strated during  the  year  1912-13  through  its  researches  in  the  retail  shoe  business. 


RATIONAL    BUSINESS     METHODS  285 

chased  during  the  month  and  the  direct  cost  connected 
with  them,  (c)  goods  sold  and  subsequently  returned 
by  customers.  Items  (a)  and  (b)  are  cost  values  and 
item  (c)  is  a  selling  value  (a  different  thing  altogether), 
consequently  their  summation  is  a  mixture  and  tells 
nothing  definite  of  the  business.  The  credit  side  of 
merchandise  contains  (a)  goods  sold  and  (b)  goods 
purchased  and  later  returned;  again  (a)  is  a  selling 
value  and  (b)  is  a  cost  value,  and  their  sum  is  a  con- 
fusion. Furthermore,  the  direct  balance  of  merchandise 
is  absolutely  meaningless;  it  is  neither  asset,  gain  nor 
loss,  nor  anything  else  distinctively." 

Now  let   us   see   the   principle   which   would   prevent 

such  practice: 

"In  a  well  kept  account,  the  sum  of  debits  for  the 
month  should  signify  a  definite  fact  about  the  business, 
the  same  being  true  of  the  credits;  and  the  balance 
of  the  two  sums  should  be  an  asset,  a  gain  or  loss,  or 
some    other   definite    thing." 

The  Counsel  of  Perfection 

Where  shall  we  go  to  find  the  counsel  of  perfection? 

To  the  counsel  of  the  individual  expert. 

Let  it  be  understood,  and,  if  necessary,  admitted  that 
there  are  quack  experts  in  business  as  in  medicine  and  in 
law.  There  are  men  who  will  promise  for  a  price  to  cure 
a  business  of  any  ills.  There  are  other  men  who  will  not 
promise  anything.  They  will  devote  their  trained  ener- 
gies and  tested  experience  to  help  solve  certain  problems 
that  you  want  to  solve  and  will  probably  turn  up  some 
problems  you  didn't  know  existed.  There  are  always 
two  kinds  of  systems  in  any  organization:  a  system  of 
operation  and  a  system  of  management ;  and  the  two  must 
dovetail,  but  one  cannot  take  the  place  of  the  other. 
There  may  be  too  much  system  of  operation  with  too 
little  system  of  management  with  the  consequence  that 
foremen  in  the  factory  and  the  managers  of  sales,  adver- 
tising, and  ofifice  departments  will  be  reduced  to  reporters 


286  WHO     SAYS     SO? 

Give  the  Expert  a  Chance 

The  expert  who  comes  with  a  ready-made  panacea  for 
all  your  cost  troubles  embodied  in  a  set  of  multi-colored 
forms  with  complete  printed  directions,  is  in  the  same 
class  with  the  astrologer  who  wants  to  know  only  the 
date  of  your  birth  to  turn  loose  a  set  of  multigraphed 
sheets  telling  you  what  you  are.  The  "expert  advertis- 
ing counsellor"  who  prepares  a  list  of  publications,  before 
he  has  studied  your  fields  of  demand,  who  talks  learnedly 
about  "national  markets,"  and  of  his  "strategy  boards" 
which  have  never  been  inside  your  business,  never  studied 
the  statistics  of  your  business  nor  your  line  of  demand, 
is  a  faker.  To  find  out  what  your  expert  knows,  give  him 
a  chance,  try  him  on  some  simple  things.  If  you  find  him 
picking  out  the  nice,  easy,  soft,  obvious  things  that  are 
apparent  to  any  man  of  common  sense  and  bringing  them 
to  you  in  elaborate  typewritten  form,  in  binders  tied  with 
pink  tape,  pay  him  off.  If  he  lets  you  talk,  if  he  makes 
you  talk,  makes  you  give  up  facts  and  figures  that  "you 
never  thought  had  anything  to  do  with  the  matter" ;  if 
you  find  him  quietly  going  about  the  office,  nosing  into 
records,  watching  typewriters  and  clerks  with  his  little 
memo  pad  in  his  hand,  chatting  with  heads  of  depart- 
ments— or  even  if  you  find  him  apparently  doing  nothing 
but  looking  out  the  window — give  him  a  couple  of  weeks 
at  it.  Talk  the  work  over  with  him;  make  out  a  list  of 
your  problems;  give  him  a  list  of  the  subjects  on  which 
you  want  light,  but  do  not  tell  him  what  you  think  the 
trouble  is;  argue  that  out  when  he  comes  with  his 
thoughts  on  the  subject.  It  is  generally  the  man  who  has 
the  suggestions  to  make  the  first  day  who  has  little  real 
permanent   help   to   offer  you. 

But  remember,  the  very  fact  that  he  doesn't  belong 
to  your  business,  the  very  fact  that  your  business  is  dif- 


RATIONAL    BUSINESS     METHODS  287 

ferent,  is  sufficient  reason  why  you  should  give  him  a 
chance.  In  point  of  fact  it  is  not  the  things  that  are 
different  in  your  business  that  make  it  efficient;  or  may  it 
not  be  that  those  very  things  make  it  inefficient?  The 
trust  company  of  Germantown,  whose  old  president  re- 
fused to  have  typewriters  or  adding  machines,  was  dif- 
ferent from  most  trust  companies,  but  did  the  difference 
make  it  efficient?  Do  not  expect  the  sales  expert,  who 
comes  in  to  give  you  a  new  idea  on  how  to  organize  your 
sales  territories,  to  do  your  advertising  also.  He  prob- 
ably doesn't  know  anything  about  advertising;  whereas 
the  expert  worthy  of  the  name  must  know  a  great  deal  of 
of  sales  work  before  he  can  become  an  advertising  expert 
in  any  sense  of  that  much  tortured  term. 

Do  not  expect  your  accounting  expert  to  give  you  a 
method  of  conducting  your  business;  he  doesn't  know 
anything  about  methods  of  business  production.  His 
function  is  to  give  you  an  accurate  reflection  of  what  you 
are  doing,  not  an  idea  of  how  you  should  do  differently 
in  order  to  get  a  better  result  to  be  reflected. 

The  Qualifications  of  the  Expert 

The  expert  is  the  man  who  combines : 

I — Concrete  experience  in  the  field  of  his  work  and  is 
thus  a  practical  man  to  the  extent  of  his  previous, 
personal,  concrete  experience. 

"The  singed  cat  dreads  the  fire,"  is  the  homely  expression 
of  "practical,  personal,  concrete  experience"  for  the  cat's 
benefit. 

The  small  advertiser  who  spends  a  thousand  dollars  for 
advertising  and  has  nothing  but  the  receipted  bills  to  show 
for  it,  stops  before  he  tries  it  again.  He  blames  the  adver- 
tising, if  he  has  had  but  little  experience;  blames  himself,  if 


288  WHO     SAYS     SO? 

he  has  had  more,  and  in  isolated  cases  would  have  better 
sense  than  to  try  it  at  all,  which  brings  us  to  the  next  ele- 
ment in  expertness : 

2 — A  wide  knowledge  of  men,  methods,  society,  art, 
and  science,  by  which  the  man  is  able  to  call  upon 
more  than  his  own  experience  for  help.  Thus  an 
advertiser  who  knew  of  the  successes  and  failures 
in  advertising,  would  have  the  aid  of  their  million 
dollar  experience  to  guide  him  in  his  thousand  dol- 
lar campaign. 

In  this  way  the  expert,  far  from  being  a  specialist  in  the 
narrow  sense,  must  be  the  most  catholic  minded  of  men, 
and  draw  food  for  sound  judgments  from  all  fields  of  art. 
science,  and  life. 

In  a  recent  talk  before  a  class  in  advertising,  my  good 
friend,  Frank  H.  Little,  of  New  York,  said : 

"There  are  times  when  an  advertising  man  needs  to 
know  all  of  physics,  all  of  botany,  all  of  zoology,  all 
of  chemistry,  all  of  mechanics,  all  of  history,  all  of 
geography,  all  of  soils,  and  all  of  meteorology.  There  is, 
I  believe,  no  knowledge  under  the  sun  which  an  all- 
around  advertising  man  may  not  find  a  way  to  use 
some  time  in  his  work. 

"But  he  must  know  selling  and  he  must  know 
psychology,  however  he  may  arrive  at  it  and  whatever 
he  may  call  it.  He  must  have  that  instinct  which  will 
tell  him  (on  top  of  hard  work)  that  this  road  or  that 
is  a  safe  one  to  follow." 

The  Work  of  the  Expert 

When  you  decide  to  use  the  outside  expert,  don't  intro- 
duce him  to  your  employes  with  the  suggestion  that  he  is 
the  original  Mr.  Wiseheimer  who  is  going  to  re-make  every- 
body into  a  new  and  efficient  unit  in  the  business.  Let  him 
come  as  the  gentle  dew  from  heaven,  to  fall  on  the  just  and 
the  unjust.     The  greatest  good  you  can  get  from  the  ex- 


RATIONAL    BUSINESS    METHODS  289 

pert  is  from  the  cutting  out  he  does,  for  you  want  to  find 
out  the  actual  conditions  in  the  business.  Don't  flinch.  The 
attitude  of  your  mind  toward  the  expert  is  important.  Don't 
"dare"  him  to  find  something  the  matter  with  your  depart- 
ment or  your  pet  system  of  handling  deHveries.  Encourage 
him  to  find  what  he  can.  Your  attitude  must  always  be  one 
of  inquiry;  it  must  be  open  to  progress.  There  must  be  the 
mastering  desire  to  be  perfectly  sure  that  what  you  are  go- 
ing to  do  is  the  right  thing  to  do. 

The  expert  mind  is  always  open  to  new  ideas.  Experts, 
when  they  come  to  deal  with  things  requiring  the  best  ex- 
perience, depend  upon  the  most  expert  of  their  number. 
The  Association  of  Automobile  Engineers,  early  in  the  de- 
velopment of  the  automobile  business,. found  that  they  were 
seriously  handicapped  by  the  hundreds  of  different  sizes  of 
screws,  grades  of  steel,  sizes  of  tubings,  etc.,  used  in  the 
manufacture  of  machines.  They  soon  set  about  standardiz- 
ing. They  took  from  all  their  membership  the  different  men 
who  knew  most  about  these  different  things.  Mr.  Souther, 
the  steel  expert,  for  instance,  was  given  the  task  of  stan- 
dardizing the  formulae  and  heats,  etc.,  for  the  kinds  of 
steel  used  for  specific  purposes.  Thus  all  other  engineers 
were  able  to  arrange  and  specify  formulae  that  they  could 
be  sure  would  produce  steel  which  would  meet  the  require- 
ments of  their  specifications. 

Mr.  Souther  gave  his  brother  engineers  this  information 
freely.  In  turn  some  gave  their  special  knowledge  of  car- 
bureters, others  of  other  parts.  Steel  tubing,  for  instance, 
was  originally  made  in  three  thousand  sizes.  It  is  now  made 
in  less  than  three  hundred.  Engineers  found  that  those  three 
hundred  sizes  met  all  requirements.  Dies  for  drawing  steel 
tubes  cost  a  good  deal,  especially  when  the  tubing  is  ordered 
in  small  lots.  Standardization  of  such  things  through  the 
co-operation  of  the   automobile  engineers   lessened   detail, 


2go  WHO     SAYS     SO? 

lessened  losses,  lessened  costs,  work,  and  worry,  and  has 
produced  a  wonderful  saving  for  the  automobile  industry. 
This  could  not  have  been  accomplished  if  any  one  company 
had  endeavored  to  accomplish  it,  but  the  expert  experience 
of  all,  centered  on  the  solution  of  the  problem,  produced 
efficient  results. 

The  same  method  must  eventually  be  applied  to  the 
standardization  of  information  about  the  quality  and  quan- 
tity of  the  circulation  of  media  for  advertising,  and  in  sales 
methods ;  and,  when  managers  bury  their  childish  ideas  of 
"valuable  secrets"  and  get  together  and  exchange  ex- 
periences, they  will  arrive  at  standards  for  the  reduction  of 
losses  and  wastes  as  these  automobile  engineers  have  done. 

Measuring  the  Expert 

All  "experts"  are  not  expert.  It  requires  some  standards 
by  which  to  measure  experts,  as  rather  expensive  experience 
will  show. 

A  certain  company  placed  on  the  market  an  excellent 
device  for  the  reproduction  of  typewriting ;  and,  by  dint  of 
some  excellent  advertising,  created  a  national  demand. 
Their  advertising  was  handled  on  a  basis  of  known  results. 
It  had  been  profitable  within  a  few  months  after  its  initial 
work.  A  disagreement  as  to  sales  policy  arose  among  the 
stockholders.  Some,  who  had  no  experience  with  the  mar- 
keting of  a  specialty,  thought  the  very  modest  advertising 
expenditure  was  a  "foolish  waste  of  money."  Despite  the 
fact  that  the  stock  had  increased  in  value  beyond  the  dreams 
of  the  promoters,  they  could  not  resist  the  temptation  to 
"save"  that  advertising  expense.  The  sales  manager  and 
several  others  retired  from  the  organization. 

Along  came  a  young  man  who  pooh-poohed  the  idea  of 
advertising.  He  said,  "The  idea  of  a  duplicating  concern 
using  space  in  magazines  when  they  are  trying  to  convince 


RATIONAL    BUSINESS     METHODS 


291 


the  public  that  the  best  kind  of  advertising  is  done  by  cir- 
cular letters !"  Which,  of  course,  was  not  a  good  reason  at 
all.  The  board  of  directors  were  looking  for  that  young 
man,  and  they  enthusiastically  employed  him.  He  would 
show  them  how  to  do  the  trick,  he  said,  by  direct  work 
through  salesmen.  He  asked  that  the  advertising  appropria- 
tion be  discontinued,  and  a  smaller  amount  of  money  be 
allowed  him  for  "sales  promotion  work" — where  the  rose 
had  a  different  name.  He  sold  the  idea,  although  he  had  no 
reputation  on  which  to  base  his  claims,  no  previous  record 
to  bear  witness  to  his  right  to  confidence.  It  was  an  idea 
fundamentally  wrong;  against  all  experience,  even  against 
their  own. 

Nobody  asked,  ''Who  says  so?"  Doubtless  the  wish  to 
"save"  the  advertising  appropriation  was  father  to  the 
thought  that  it  could  be  done.  In  nineteen  months  the  sales 
of  the  company  had  fallen  to  such  a  degree  that  the  new 
sales  manager  was  asked  for  his  resignation.  The  company 
came  back  to  first  principles  and  started  in  a  larger  and 
better  way  than  ever  to  apply  the  advertising  poultice  to  the 
irritated  demand.  The  business  came  back,  because  a  good 
thing  cannot  be  killed.  The  advertising  appropriation,  of 
course,  is  larger  than  it  ever  was,  because  it  has  to  regain  lost 
ground.  In  the  meantime,  competition  has  obtained  a  foot- 
hold, and  the  best  the  old  company  can  expect  is  to  divide 
the  business. 

Where  an  Expert  Was  Needed 

A  certain  manufacturing  company  decided  to  develop 
an  entirely  new  line  of  prospects  among  retailers  where  the 
new  commodity  had  never  been  used.  The  prospects  were 
totally  unfamiliar  with  the  product.  The  sales  force  of  the 
manufacturer  had  never  sold  the  retailer  the  product.  A 
sales  quota  was  fixed  and  given  to  each  man  of  the  force. 


292 


WHO    SAYS    SO? 


Now,  before  you  can  sell  anything-  in  any  quantity,  either  the 
salesman  or  the  prospect  must  know  what  it  is  good  for.  In 
this  case  the  salesman  didn't  know  how  the  retailer  could  use 
it;  and  the  retailer  did  not  know  what  it  could  do  for  him. 
The  result  was,  of  course,  a  failure  to  make  sales. 

The  salesmen  should  have  been  trained  in  the  exact 
method  of  handling  the  retailers  with  the  entirely  new  line 
of  trade.  Before  that  even,  the  ground  should  have  been 
broken  with  the  prospects  by  a  well-considered  advance 
campaign  of  education  among  them  to  bring  out  the  possible 
uses  of  the  machine.  A  man  with  an  expert  knowledge  of 
retail  conditions  would  have  been  worth  many  thousands  of 
dollars  to  that  house  if  he  had  been  permitted  to  do  the  work 
in  the  way  it  should  have  been  done. 

The  sales  manager  of  this  house  was  of  the  strenuous 
sort — full  of  the  "Hoop-la!  Come-on-boys"  style  of  leader- 
ship which  is  good  for  something  after  the  organizing  has 
been  done.  Who  said  the  adopted  plan  was  right? — was  a 
question  no  one  asked.  If  they  had,  it  would  have  been  easy 
to  query  the  value  of  the  idea,  and  then  put  it  to  the  acid 
test.  It  was  as  full  of  holes  as  a  fly  screen,  but  nobody 
asked  for  an  expert  test. 

Supplanting  a  Bad  System 

How  the  same  principle  works  is  illustrated  in  an  office 
where  standardized  accounting  instructions  were  the  rule. 
I  had  an  experience  in  an  office  where  the  entire  accounting 
system  had  been  outgrown.  An  outside  expert  worked  over 
the  new  system  for  three  months,  elaborating  the  scheme  of 
accounts.  After  consulting  with  each  of  the  heads  of  de- 
partments and  with  those  who  audited  accounts  in  the 
firm's  name,  to  get  all  the  data  on  old  practices  which  had 
accumulated  for  ten  years,  he  sent  definite  instructions  to 
each  head  of  a  department,  with  the  table  of  account  num- 


RATIONAL    BUSINESS     METHODS 


293 


bers.  In  twenty-four  hours  the  new  system  was  working, 
and,  by  having  the  expert  on  hand  to  explain  exceptions  and 
misunderstandings  during  the  first  five  months  of  its  ap- 
plication, the  system  worked  out  with  little  hindrance,  and 
with  a  tremendous  gain  in  efficiency. 

Before  it  had  been  a  game  of  push  and  pull,  as  it  always 
is  in  the  inefficient  organizations  where  changes  are  effected 
by  issuing  orders  from  the  general  manager  to  the  head 
of  the  department.  The  head  of  a  department  tells  his 
assistant;  the  assistant  tells  a  clerk;  and,  if  there  is  anybody 
below  the  clerk  to  do  it,  the  one  who  receives  the  least 
amount  for  his  brains  is  finally  expected  to  do  it  right. 
Orders  always  come  down  to  the  simple  question,  "Who 
says  so?" 

This  system  is  entirely  wrong,  but  it  is  much  more  pre- 
valent than  you  may  think.  If  you  are  the  head  of  a  busi- 
ness, stop  and  think  how  many  times  you  have  done  it.  Stop 
and  think  how  many  times  you  have  told  the  advertising 
manager  to  advertise  in  some  particular  medium  or  arrange 
an  advertisement  along  some  particular  line  without  giving 
him  the  slightest  conception  of  what  you  had  in  your  mind 
when  giving  the  order.  You  have  no  right  to  expect  that 
your  advertising  manager  is  a  guesser  as  well  as  a  doer. 
How  many  times  have  you  told  a  certain  clerk  behind  the 
counter  that  he  is  "lacking  in  tact"?  Probably  he  doesn't 
know  what  tact  is.  He  doesn't  know  what  you  mean.  Have 
you  ever  shown  him  what  tact  would  have  been  under  the 
conditions  ?  Have  you  gained  any  respect  for  your  authority 
by  such  methods? 

Isn't  it  inevitable  that  he  should  ask,  IVIio  says  so? 

A  Standard  Practice  Book 

Typical  of  the  advanced  practice  in  leading  factories, 
shops,  and  offices,  the   Griffin   Wheel   Company,   Chicago. 


,294  ^HO     SAYS     SO? 

makers  of  car  wheels,  have  a  Standard  Practice  Book  in 
which  they  tell  with  the  minutest  detail  the  best  way  to  do 
everything  in  the  making  of  car  wheels.  The  different  lines 
of  practice  are  printed  on  loose  leaf  sheets.  All  officers,  fore- 
men, and  inspectors  are  required  to  have  a  thorough  knowl- 
edge of  this  standard  practice.  When  pages  are  recalled  for 
changes,  the  new  sheets  indicate  by  special  marks  the  changes 
that  have  been  made.  This  practice  is  passed  upon  by  the 
experts  in  the  employ  of  the  company  and  reflects  their  best 
thought  and  experience.  Each  employe  feels  the  confidence 
that  expert  authority  gives  to  the  instructions. 

The  question,  "Who  says  so?"  is  answered,  "The  ex- 
pert who  knows  more  than  I  do  about  this  work." 

The  efficiency  expert  entering  an  organization,  comes 
with  the  idea  of  applying  efficiency  principles  to  the  details 
of  the  work ;  he  goes  deep  down  into  the  ground,  into  the 
foundations,  like  the  tree  that  withstands  the  storms ;  it 
busies  itself  with  its  roots  first  and  for  several  seasons  after 
planting  may  not  show  off  well,  but  when  it  has  taken  hold 
it  makes  shade  and  bears  fruit.  The  inexpert  planter,  want- 
ing shade  and  fruit  with  as  little  delay  as  possible,  forces 
the  tree  to  bearing  and  it  dies  like  the  hot-house  plant  which 
has  been  forced  for  an  Easter  flower  market,  because  it 
hasn't  gone  deep  enough. 

Establishing  a  Schedule 

The  expert  works  on  a  schedule.  In  a  large  establish- 
ment, where  the  printing  bills  ran  close  to  $300,000  a  year, 
a  young  man,  who  had  been  trained  in  the  Cornell  Engineer- 
ing School,  was  placed  in  charge  of  the  printing  department 
because  of  five  years'  experience  he  had  had  in  a  job  printing 
shop  before  taking  up  engineering.  He  established  the 
rule  that  all  orders  must  bear  a  date  for  proof  and  a  date  for 
final  finishing.     This  schedule  was  always  arranged  at  the 


RATIONAL    BUSINESS    METHODS  295 

time  the  order  was  given.  Orders  finished  on  time  were 
paid  a  small  bonus,  and  after  eleven  months  of  patient  work 
the  brow-beating  and  persuasion  of  printers  were  eliminated, 
and  schedules  did  not  vary  more  than  a  fraction  of  one  per 
cent.  It  wasn't  more  than  half  the  printer's  fault  that  there 
were  delays.  The  manager  saw  to  it  that  dummies  were 
arranged  by  an  expert  in  his  department,  and  that  all  copy 
was  read  for  errors  and  changes,  and  checked  for  accurate 
descriptions,  etc.,  and  was  O.  K.'d  by  the  reviewing  au- 
thority before  it  was  sent  to  the  printer,  instead  of  being 
sent  to  the  printer  in  rough  copy  and  then  the  necessary 
checking  and  approval  done  on  the  proof.  The  consequence 
was  not  only  a  gain  in  time  efficiency,  but  a  saving  of  nearly 
three  per  cent  in  costs,  which  represented  the  charge  for 
time  spent  in  corrections. 

The  organization  of  a  battleship  crew  is  one  of  the  most 
efficient  in  the  world,  because  every  man  is  trained  by  an 
expert.  Every  order  is  instantly  obeyed ;  discipline  is  per- 
fect ;  and  the  most  acute  minds  among  the  officers  are  con- 
centrated upon  the  elimination  of  the  fraction  of  a  second 
in  the  handling  of  the  work.  Every  act  is  scrutinized  and 
timed. 

The  Side  Drift 

The  rule-of-thumb  man  who  operates  entirely  by  his  own 
observation  is  a  good  deal  like  Sir  John  Franklin,  who 
started  for  the  North  Pole.  He  traveled  the  necessary  dis- 
tance over  the  ice  to  his  first  place  of  camp ;  on  taking  ob- 
servation he  found  that  although  he  had  made  the  required 
distance,  yet  he  had  drifted  in  another  direction  nearly  200 
miles.  Mr.  Vaniman,  the  engineer  of  the  Wellman  Trans- 
Atlantic  balloon  expedition,  told  me  that  it  was  this  side  drift 
that  knocked  out  all  their  calculations.  The  expert  navigator 
takes  account,  not  only  of  the  direction  in  which  the  ship's 


296  WHO     SAYS     SO? 

nose  is  pointed,  but  of  the  side  thrusts  of  the  currents  as 
well. 

The  expert  in  business,  who  has  a  certain  objective  in 
the  increase  of  production,  has  to  watch  the  side  drifts  of 
increased  cost  of  deterioration  of  quality  for  each  unit.  The 
executive,  with  an  objective  point  of  greater  efficiency 
through  open-mindedness  to  new  ideas,  has  to  guard  against 
the  side-thrusts  of  misinformation  which  may  land  him 
high  and  dry  far  from  his  harbor. 

Beware  of  Misinformation 

A  writer  in  one  of  our  advertising  publications  recently 
made  some  definite  statements  of  the  relative  pulling  powers 
of  letters  addressed  by  typewriters,  by  addressing  machines, 
and  by  hand.  The  comparative  statement  sounded  quite 
plausible,  but  when  analyzed  it  was  apparent  that  the  test 
was  not  made  under  any  rules  of  scientific  observation ; 
therefore  his  conclusions  were  not  safe  guides. 

The  value  of  the  idea  frequently  becomes  less  when  we 
ask,  Who  says  so  ? 

Another  writer  says  that  "Only  40  per  cent  of  circular 
letters  are  ever  read."  He  indicated  no  scientific  foundations 
for  any  such  claim.  We  may  well  ask  in  any  such  cases, 
Who  says  so?  It  may  be  assumed,  however,  that  scores  of 
advertisers  have  made  changes  in  their  methods  which  are 
traceable  to  such  superficial  statements.  So  the  man  look- 
ing for  that  definite  information  in  which  he  may  place  im- 
plicit confidence,  must  be  cautious  to  know  l)y  what  authority 
of  evidence,  experience,  and  accurate  tests  his  guides  act 
and  speak. 

Is  not  our  patience  tried  every  day  by  the  wise  ignoramus 
who  passes  snap  judgments  on  things  of  which  he  knows 
absolutely  nothing?  It  is  impossible  to  "reach  him"  with 
any  reasonable  statement  because,  as  Emerson  discovered 


RATIONAL    BUSINESS     METHODS 


297 


long  ago,  "You  can't  argue  with  a  man  whom  you  have  to 
educate  at  the  same  time."  There  is  nothing  to  work  with; 
it  is  void  to  begin  with.  As  Archimedes  said  he  could 
"move  the  earth  if  he  had  a  place  on  which  to  rest  his 
lever,"  so  we  need  education  as  the  fulcrum  by  which  to  move 
men  to  higher  and  greater  realizations. 


CHAPTER    XXV 

SCIENTIFIC  PRINCIPLES  APPLIED  TO  BUSINESS 

There  are  many  more  false  facts  tlian  false  theories, 
because  people  do  not  test  and  try  what  they  hear  or  see, 
to  be  sure  that  things  are  what  they  seem. — A.  F.  Ribot. 

A  Story  of  Cravats 

In  a  series  of  articles  contributed  to  a  popular  science 
weekly,*  Waldemar  Kaempffert  told  the  following  incident 
to  show  the  value  of  scientific  research  work  to  the  business 
man : 

"A  Saxon  manufacturer  of  silk  cravats  found  that  his 
orders  were  steadily  diminishing,  although  the  season  and 
the  market  were  both  in  his  favor.  He  made  an  investiga- 
tion and  discovered  that  his  customers  were  buying  silk 
cravats  from  a  Prussian  manufacturer  at  a  price  50  per 
cent  less  than  that  at  which  he  could  produce  them.  To  the 
Saxon's  eye  and  touch  the  cheaper  cravats  were  as  good  as 
his  own.  He  could  detect  nothing  in  the  material  that  could 
explain  why  cravats  exactly  the  same  in  appearance  should 
be  sold  at  two  widely  different  prices.  He  spent  a  month 
in  thoroughly  overhauling  his  factory.  He  found  that  he 
was  buying  his  raw  material  at  the  lowest  possible  prices ; 
that  his  wages  were  not  higher  than  they  should  be ;  that 
his  overhead  charges  were  not  excessive ;  and  that  his  or- 
ganization was  good.  Yet  the  fact  remained  that  the  Prus- 
sian was  underselling  him,  and  was  apparently  making 
money. 

"The  Saxon  was  an  expert  in  cravats — at  least  he 
thought  he  knew  all  about  them,  because  he  had  been  mak- 
ing them  for  the  better  part  of  his  career.  Yet  for  the 
life  of  him  he  could  not  explain  why  it  was  impossible  for 
him  to  compete  with  the  Prussian.  One  day  a  salesman  of 
his  suggested  that  it  might  be  well  to  have  the  Saxon  and 
the  Prussian  cravats  scientifically  compared  by  the  Konig- 


*  Scientific  American,  New  York 

298 


SCIENTIFIC  PRINCIPLES 

liches  Material-Priifungsamt,  the  Royal  Laboratory  for 
Testing  Materials  at  Gross  Lichterfelde,  near  Berlin.  The 
examination  would  cost  little  and  might  explain  the 
mystery.  As  a  manufacturer,  the  Saxon  was  convinced 
that  he  knew  more  about  cravats  than  any  scientist  in  any 
government  testing  laboratory,  and  that  his  trained  eye 
and  his  sensitive  thumb  were  more  to  be  relied  upon  than 
lenses  and  chemicals ;  still  he  consented.  Samples  of  the 
Prussian  and  Saxon  cravats  were  sent  to  Gross  Lichter- 
felde. Two  weeks  later  he  received  a  formal  report.  His 
own  cravats  were  pure  silk.  The  Prussian's  cravats  were 
half  genuine  silk  and  half  artificial  silk  (nitro-cellulose). 
A  chemist  and  a  miscroscopist,  neither  of  whom  had  ever 
made  a  cravat  in  his  life,  had  not  only  discovered  in  an 
hour  or  two  a  deception  that  a  manufacturing  experience 
of  thirty  years  had  failed  to  note,  but  even  revealed  what 
particular  process  had  been  used  in  making  the  artificial 
silk  employed. 

Science  and  Business 

"It  would  not  be  difficult  to  relate  a  hundred  instances 
such  as  this,  all  of  them  typical  of  the  work  done  at  the 
most  remarkable  testing  laboratory  in  the  world.  At  Gross 
Lichterfelde  I  saw  not  only  cravats  undergoing  a  rigorous 
scientific  investigation,  but  chains,  girders,  paper,  textiles, 
wood,  dyes,  copper,  rubber,  ink,  typewriter  ribbons— almost 
every  kind  of  material  that  is  used  in  our  daily  lives. 
Sometimes,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Saxon  manufacturer 
of  cravats,  the  manufacturer  was  puzzled  by  a  rival's  suc- 
cess;  sometimes  he  found  himself  with  oxidized  metal  or 
faded  goods  on  his  hands,  unable  to  discover  the  cause  of 
the  defects;  sometimes  he  thought  the  customs  officers 
had  wrongly  appraised  his  importations,  because  they  had 
misjudged  the  character  of  the  material;  sometimes  he 
wanted  to  know  which  of  several  raw  materials  should  be 
employed  for  a  specific  purpose  and  was  unable  to  decide 
himself. 

The  Royal  Laboratory 

"The  Royal  Laboratory  for  Testing  Materials  works 
hand  in  hand  with  the  German  industrial.  For  a  sum  of 
money  that  must  seem  slight  to  Americans,  it  places  at  his 
command  a  staff  of  two  hundred  and  twenty-two  men, 
seventy-two  of  whom  are  technically  trained  and  the  high- 


299 


300  WHO     SAYS     SO? 

est  authorities  in  their  respective  departments  of  science. 
These  men  have  at  their  disposal  an  equipment  that  in- 
cludes the  best  obtainable  apparatus  for  testing  and  analyz- 
ing any  given  material. 

"In  Germany,  indeed  in  Europe,  the  Laboratory  is  re- 
garded as  a  court  of  last  resort  in  matters  involving  the  ap- 
plication of  science  to  business.  It  is  frequently  difficult 
for  a  scientific  man  in  the  employ  of  a  large  corporation-  to 
deliver  an  absolutely  impartial  opinion  on  his  firm's 
product.  Inevitably  there  is  a  tendency  to  underestimate 
the  products  of  a  rival  manufacturer  and  to  view  his  own 
with  favor.  There  is  no  such  tendency  in  the  Royal  Test- 
ing Laboratory.  Every  chemist,  every  engineer,  every 
microscopist,  every  physicist,  is  a  government  official,  and, 
as  such,  he  is  enabled  to  assume  an  absolutely  impartial  and 
judicial  attitude  toward  the  problem  given  him  for  solu- 
tion. Indeed,  impartiality  is  insisted  upon,  not  only  in  the 
testing  and  examination  of  materials,  but  also  in  the  phras- 
ing of  the  reports  submitted  to  an  applicant  for  informa- 
tion. The  manufacturer  who  can  use  one  of  the  Royal 
Testing  Laboratory's  colorless  opinions  for  advertising 
purposes  would  be  miraculously  ingenious.  To  restrain 
him,  however,  from  exercising  too  freely  what  average 
ingenuity  Nature  has  endowed  him,  and  to  prevent  him 
from  quoting  with  approval  a  report  which  is  many  years 
old  and  not  at  all  applicable  to  his  present  goods,  the 
director  of  the  Laboratory  refuses  to  furnish  certified 
copies  of  opinions  more  than  one  year  old,  and  sometimes 
goes  to  the  trouble  of  checking  up  advertisements  in  which 
reference  is  made  to  the  favorable  opinion  of  the  Royal 
Testing  Laboratory." 

Corporation  Research  Laboratories 

This  story  reflects  the  typical  attitude  of  German  busi- 
ness, which  uses  science  and  the  scientist  because  it  has 
found  it  pays.  It  is  hoped  that  under  the  inspiration  of 
enhghtened  business  our  government  will  make  larger  ap- 
propriations for  maintaining  and  widening  the  work  of  the 
Bureau  of  Standards  on  the  principle  of  Gross  Lichterfelde. 

The  more  efficient  corporations  are  definitely  concerned 
about  the  future.    They  want  to  know  the  real  force  of  com- 


SCIENTIFIC  PRINCIPLES 


301 


petition,  the  value  of  competitive  goods;  and  they  dedicate 
some  of  their  best  brains  to  laboratory  work  to  prepare  for 
the  day  after  tomorrow. 

The  research  work  of  one  electrical  manufacturing  com- 
pany, it  is  said,  costs  a  half  million  dollars  a  year.  One 
specialty  house  spends  $275,000  a  year;  another  over 
$100,000  in  the  same  time.  The  whole  object  is  to  insure 
the  future. 

I  know  a  house  which  receives  an  average  of  one  idea  a 
day  from  inventors.  Some  are  paper  inventions,  while 
others  have  elaborate  models.  There  is  a  committee  in  that 
house  which  gives  careful  thought  and  examination  to  every 
one  of  these  ideas.  "We  never  know,"  said  the  president, 
"when  or  where  something  better  than  what  we  have  will 
appear.    We  can't  afiford  to  take  chances." 

Men  in  charge  of  these  laboratories,  research  depart- 
ments, inventions  departments — they  go  by  different  names 
— are  always  scientific  men,  electrical,  mechanical,  civil, 
chemical  engineers ;  sometimes  they  are  elaborate  organiza- 
tions ;  and  again,  but  one  or  two  men ;  but  always  they  are 
the  thinkers,  the  prophets,  because  the  constructive  imagina- 
tions, the  theorists  are  today  looking  after  the  future  of 
the  hundred  million  dollar  corporations. 

These  corporations  want  to  know  what  is  going  to  hap- 
pen ten,  twenty  years  hence.  They'll  take  care  of  today's 
problems,  but  they  must  hire  the  type  of  expert  who  pene- 
trates the  future.  There  is  no  such  thing  in  big  business  as 
"a  man  ahead  of  his  time."  Great  corporations  must  have 
tomorrow  planned  today. 

As  one  of  the  managers  of  a  company  said  to  an  in- 
ventor: 

"We  want  men  like  you.  It  is  easy  for  us  to  get 
good,  faithful,  plodding  scientists.  They  all  have  their 
place,  and  we  couldn't  do  without  them.     But  the  diffi- 


302  WHO     SAYS     SO? 

cult  thing  is  to  get  men  who  will  think  differently  from 
other  men,  who  won't  be  carried  away  by  precedent,  but 
will  strike  out  new  and  original  lines  for  themselves. 
Out  of  this  we  get  our  development.  The  difficulty  is 
to  discover  men  with  imagination,  who  dream  dreams  and 
then  harness  up  science  to  make  them  real." 

The  American  Telephone  &  Telegraph  Company  has  a 
large  staff  of  laboratory  and  engineering  experts,  "compe- 
tent," as  President  Theodore  N.  Vail  said  in  his  report  for 
1912,  "to  keep  abreast  of  the  modern  progress  and  find  out 
how  to  utilhe  all  of  everything/'  how  to  get  "the  large  gross 
production  at  small  margin  of  profit." 

These  things  are  after  all  nothing  but  an  attempt  to 
find  out  who  says  so  and  to  test  the  validity  of  his  judg- 
ments when  he  states  them. 

"The  Mayor's  Eye" 

The  government  of  a  city  is  a  business.  In  a  city  like 
New  York,  the  Mayor,  whom  we  shall  liken  to  a  General 
Manager,  has  thirty-four  departments,  which  employ  60,000 
men  and  women  and  which  spend  $250,000,000  a  year.  In 
the  early  '70's,  Boss  Tweed  nearly  ran  away  with  the  town ; 
hence  the  legislature  in  1873  established  the  Commission  of 
Accounts,  which  cost  in  1910  about  $219,389  to  maintain. 
This  commission  is  composed  of  experts  who  are  supposed 
to  keep  watch  and  guard  over  the  city's  expenditure  and  to 
increase  the  efficiency  of  that  expenditure.  In  a  little  book 
published  under  the  title,  "The  Mayor's  Eye,"  a  most  inter- 
esting exhibit  is  given  of  the  value  of  this  commission's 
work.  The  important  lesson  to  be  drawn  from  this  exhibit 
is  that  not  only  does  the  commission  perform  the  ordinary 
functions  of  an  auditor  of  income  and  disbursements,  but 
it  employs  experts  to  test  the  value  of  zvhat  the  city  buys  in 
materials  and  services.  There  should  be  a  "Boss's  Eye"  in 
most  shops  and  factories  and  offices. 


SCIENTIFIC  PRINCIPLES 


303 


So  the  City  of  New  York  has  its  efficiency  laboratory  in 
which  "services  are  valued." 

Market  Statistics  vs.  Market  Guesses 

To  hear  the  average  man  learnedly  discuss  tendencies  of 
markets  and  business  or  talk  about  the  effect  of  short  crops 
and  of  certain  legislation,  is  to  see  illuminating  sidelights 
on  the  fallacy  of  the  majority  of  human  judgments.  That 
there  are  fundamental  principles  on  which  the  great  cycles 
of  Prosperity,  Decline,  Depression,  and  Improvement  turn, 
the  history  of  two  hundred  years  proves  beyond  a  reasonable 
doubt.  But  to  anticipate  these  cycles,  to  be  forwarned,  to 
be  prepared,  to  know  what  is  past,  what  is  present,  what  is 
to  come,  the  business  man  must  be  able  to  realize  the  funda- 
mental laws  at  work.  To  depend  on  the  comparative  statis- 
tics of  the  marketplace,  or  your  own  business,  is  to  be  the 
victim  of  rapid  fluctuations  which  have  nothing  to  do  with 
larger  tendencies ;  on  the  other  hand,  fundamental  statistics 
and  comparative  statistics  together,  give  the  best  results. 

Rodger  W.  Babson,  the  statistical  expert,  working  with 
the  figures  on  twenty-five  fundamental  conditions,  says  that 
they  show  the  tendencies  of  markets  and  people.  Some  think 
such  diagrams  are  like  the  horse  racing  charts  and  dismiss 
the  idea  as  chimerical — a  conclusion  which  does  little  credit 
to  their  education  in  economics.  There  is  not  a  great 
financier  from  the  Rothschilds,  Barings,  Morgan,  to  the 
wide-awake  country  banker  who  does  not  study  such  funda- 
mental statistics. 

The  average  American  is  too  much  in  a  hurry ;  he  wants 
to  make  a  "quick  turn"  in  wheat,  cotton,  railroad  stock,  or 
in  land.  The  men  who  have  made  great  fortunes  have 
bought  and  sold  on  the  basis  of  twenty-year  periods.  Mr. 
Babson  speaks  in  one  place  of  men  who  purchased  high- 
grade  securities  outright  to  the  extent  of  $5,000.  and  by 


304 


WHO    SAYS    SO? 


selling  in  the  years  of  plenty  and  buying  in  the  years  of  de- 
pression, which  could  be  anticipated  by  the  study  of  funda- 
mental statistics,  cleared  $250,000  in  twenty  years.  This 
study  of  fundamental  statistics  is  not  confined  to  financiers 
or  bankers  or  stock  brokers,  but  sales  managers  and  credit 
men  are  studying  them  and  making  plans  for  the  year  after 
next,  based  on  the  plain  tendencies  reflected  in  the  tables. 

I  speak  of  these  facts  here  because  those  who  have  not 
studied  such  things  are  prone  to  believe  too  much  in  the 
idea  that  life  and  business  just  rush  on  and  on  in  the  hands 
of  a  special  providence  which  in  some  inscrutable  way  takes 
care  of  us. 

Follow^  the  Rules 

The  fundamental  laws  which  govern  the  success  of  any 
business  are  wrapped  up  in  the  principles  of  efficiency.  Every 
successful  business  man  must  practice  some  of  those  prin- 
ciples. The  most  successful  business  men  practice  all  of 
them;  and  the  more  they  are  practiced,  the  more  successful 
the  business.  A  business  man  who  doesn't  practice  them  is 
inefficient  to  the  extent  to  which  he  ignores  them.  He  can- 
not escape  the  penalty.  You  may  call  the  principles  by 
whatever  name  your  fancy  suggests,  but  you  must  play  the 
game  according  to  the  rules.  Just  in  proportion  as  you 
know  and  are  skilled  in  application,  or  have  the  capacity  to 
hire  skill  in  application,  you  will  succeed.  Just  because  this 
is  a  new  idea  advanced  in  a  new  way,  let  no  one  hesitate,  for 
ideas  are  ruling  the  world  more  than  ever  in  its  history.  In 
fact,  the  idea  is  as  old  as  the  everlasting  hills.  Moses 
brought  some  of  these  principles  to  the  Children  of  Israel  on 
a  certain  memorable  occasion  when  they  were  worshipping 
a  calf  reared  by  a  practical  man,  who  wanted  something 
"tangible."  Carlyle  once  sat  listening  to  the  chatter  of  a  lot 
of  men  about  the  man  of  ideas  and  how  inefifective  he  wa'^ 


SCIENTIFIC  PRINCIPLES 


305 


A  pause  came  and  the  hard-headed  old  Scot  cut  short  further 
observation :  "Gentlemen,"  he  said,  "there  was  once  a  man 
called  Rousseau.  He  wrote  a  book  which  is  nothing  but 
ideas.  People  laughed  at  him.  But  the  skins  of  those  who 
laughed  went  to  bind  the  second  edition  of  that  book."  That 
book  was  "The  Social  Contract,"  and  the  skins  were  tanned 
in  the  blood  and  agony  of  the  French  Revolution. 

The  Men  Who  Block  the  Way 

It  is  an  age-old  fight  by  the  man  of  ideas,  of  systems, 
facts  and  figures,  against  the  man  of  brawn  who  works  with 
his  hands,  or  his  feet.  It  is  an  age-old  struggle  between  the 
standpat  intellect  of  the  "man  from  Missouri,"  and  the  man 
of  dreams  who  looks  into  the  future  and  sees  things  that 
will  not  come  to  full  fruition  until  the  day  after  tomorrow. 
The  standpatter  has  to  answer  for  some  of  the  greatest  evils 
of  the  day.  The  good  he  prevents  is  greater  than  the  evil 
the  most  impractical  theorist  has  to  answer  for. 

Everyone  of  us  needs  self-confidence.  But  there  are  two 
kinds:  (a)  The  kind  which  causes  us  to  make  no  effort  to 
better  our  condition,  because  all  our  time  and  strength  is 
taken  in  preventing  others  from  bettering  theirs,  (b)  The 
kind  in  which  the  men  whose  opinions  are  worth  while 
agree  with  us. 

The  number  of  advertising  managers  who  resent  proffers 
of  help  on  the  part  of  experts  in  printing,  advertising,  and 
designing,  is  beyond  belief.  I  have  before  me  a  letter  so  un- 
usually candid,  yet  so  typical  of  the  closed  mind,  that  I 
quote  it :  "I  have  no  doubt  that  a  firm  which  incorporates 
within  itself  the  combined  experience  of  so  many  wide- 
awake advertising  men  could  be  of  assistance  to  our  people 
and  make  many  valuable  suggestions  as  to  how  we  might 
improve  our  advertising  and  get  more  results.  But  under 
no  conditions  will  I  consider  your  proposition,  because  we 


3o6  WHO    SAYS    SO? 

are  getting  along  pretty  well  as  we  are  going  on,  atid  any- 
way, I  want  all  the  credit  of  whatever  success  our  campaigns 
may  enjoy,  myself.  I  don't  want  to  share  it  zvith  anybody. 
I  am  paid  to  do  such  work."  Such  a  man  with  such  an 
advertising  policy  is  a  menace  to  any  institution  that  em- 
ploys him ;  yet  there  are  many  times  too  many  such  men 
acting  as  sales,  advertising,  and  accounting  managers.  Most 
of  them  take  their  attitude  from  the  head  of  the  house 
who  resents  suggestions. 

They  resent  outside  suggestions.  With  their  minds 
cribbed  and  cabined  by  the  force  of  rigid  circumstances,  they 
keep  their  business  powers  and  work  confined  to  the  narrow 
channel  of  their  personal  interests  and  desires,  and  think 
that  in  doing  so  they  are  nurturing  that  blessed  bluff,  their 
individuality. 

Recognition  of  the  Expert 

A  change  is  coming  over  the  American  business  men. 
Education,  dearly  bought  in  our  competition  with  more 
scientific  competitors  is  forcing  it.  The  increase  of  the 
professional  spirit  toward  work  at  a  desk  or  a  machine  is 
everywhere  enlarging  the  vision  of  men  and  bringing  them 
into  closer  contact  with  each  other,  which  fellowship  is  mak- 
ing for  greater  efficiency. 

Fifteen  years  ago  the  professional  accounting  expert  was 
"a  bookkeeper  out  of  a  job."  Today  he  commands  from 
$25  to  $200  a  day  for  a  result  that  is  worth  the  price.  The 
advertising  manager  of  ten  years  ago  was  a  man  of  ink, 
hired  to  do  the  lying  for  an  advertiser  who  was  afraid  of  the 
hereafter.  Today,  he  is  counseling  close  to  the  throne,  and 
can  drive  his  own  automobile. 

The  professional  sales  expert,  the  efficiency  engineer,  the 
office  expert,  are  all  coming  into  their  own.  The  business 
manager  finds  that  he  needs  them  and  their  scientific  attitude 


SCIENTIFIC  PRINCIPLES  ^^^ 

towards  all  details  of  his  business,  for  they  are  making  good. 
Out  of  this  condition  is  coming  a  philosophy  of  business 
which  is  reflecting  itself  in  that  social,  financial,  and  busi- 
ness life  of  the  country  which  is  now  making  so  seriously 
for  a  knowledge  of  the  value  of  what  is  doing,  and  towards 
higher  ideals.  In  such  a  scheme,  individuality  has  a  greater 
and  a  broader,  and  a  better  growth,  for  we  have  ceased  to 
act  on  the  cynic's  epigram  : 

"Believe  nothing  you  hear  and  only  half  that  you  see  " 
which  has  been  changed  to,  "See  all  that  is  right,  hear  all 
tlmt  is  true." 


fOWrir 


G.K 


PART  VIII 

Thinker,    Doer   &   Company 


CHAPTER    XXVI 

THE     EXECUTIVE     ORGANIZATION 

In  management  the  arbitrary  must  always  yield  to  the 
essential — it  can't  help  it — if  it  does  help  it — it  goes  to 
smash  just  as  surely  as  science  decrees  it. 

Beware  when  the  great  God  lets  loose  a  thinker  on  this 
planet.  Then  all  things  are  at  risk.  It  is  as  when  a  con- 
flagration has  broken  out  in  a  great  city,  and  no  man  knows 
what  is  safe  or  where  it  will  end.  There  is  not  a  piece  of 
science  but  its  Hank  may  be  turned  tomorrow ;  there  is 
not  any  literary  reputation,  not  the  so-called  eternal  names 
of  fame,  that  may  not  be  revised  and  condemned.  The 
very  hopes  of  man,  the  thoughts  of  his  heart,  the  religion 
of  nations,  the  manner  and  morals  of  mankind,  are  all  at 
the  mercy  of  a  new  generalization.  Generalization  is  al- 
ways a  new  influx  of  the  divinity  into  the  mind.  Hence 
the  thrill  that  attends  it. — Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 

Capital,  labor,  management,  and  the  co-operation  of  these 
three  are  what  tend  to  the  greatest  success  in  modern 
business. — Walter  H.  Cottingham. 

The  Man  Who  Got  Things  Done 

One  morning  a  young  man,  whom  we  shall  call  Jones, 
stepped  into  the  office  of  General  Manager  Brown,  of  an 
old,  very  respectable,  and  well-rated  concern  in  a  New  Eng- 
land city.  Jones  had  a  difficulty — some  of  his  work  had 
been  carried  forward  to  a  point  where  it  required  the  co- 
operation of  a  clerk  in  the  sales  department.  That  other 
clerk  had  other  work  to  do,  and  Jones'  work  was  at  a  stand- 
still. It  was  not  in  Jones  to  wait,  so  he  had  to  "take  it  up 
front." 

.311 


312 


THINKER,     DOER    &    COMPANY 


The  general  manager  was  displeased  at  the  complaint. 
"Mr.  Jones,  you  seem  to  have  a  great  deal  of  difficulty  with 
the  men  in  the  sales  department.  You  should  get  along  bet- 
ter with  them." 

"I  could  very  easily,"  calmly  replied  Jones,  "but  I  would 
not  get  so  much  done.  I  am  not  finding  fault  with  the  clerks ; 
it  is  the  method,  you  see." 

Now  the  "method"  was  the  general  manager's  pet. 

"What's  the  matter  with  the  method?  It  has  been  a 
pretty  safe  and  effective  method  that  has  brought  us  from 
$50,000  a  year  to  $50,000  a  month,  Mr.  Jones,"  replied  the 
general  manager  with  an  air  of  having  squelched  such  dis- 
loyalty. Mr.  Jones  smiled  a  cool,  calm  smile,  as  he  looked 
the  G.  M.  straight  in  the  eye :  "Don't  you  think  it  ought  to 
be  pensioned  off  for  good  and  faithful  service?"  he  asked. 

That  was  impertinence,  lese  majesty,  and  a  gross  breach 
of  discipline.  "That  will  do,  Mr.  Jones ;  leave  these  papers 
with  me,"  frigidly  replied  the  general  manager. 

Jones  didn't  move,  but  flushing  a  bit,  he  added :  "As  I 
am  leaving  this  week,  Mr.  Brown,  I  may  offer  you  a  bit  of 
advice.  You  began  by  paying  me  $20.00  a  week ;  then  you 
raised  my  wages  until  now  I  am  getting  $40.00.  You  said 
I  was  'a  good  man  because  I  got  things  done.'  It  never 
seemed  to  occur  to  you  to  find  out  how  I  got  them  done. 
Let  me  tell  you  now.  I  'got  things  done'  by  browbeating 
my  inferiors,  by  cajolery  of  my  equals,  by  pleading  with  my 
superiors,  by  helping  others  do  their  work  when  they  didn't 
know  how,  and  by  breaking  all  the  written  and  unwritten 
laws  of  your  fifty-year-old  business — by  daring  to  do  the 
things  others  said  I'd  be  fired  for  doing.  You  do  not  know 
this;  that,  too,  is  a  criticism  of  your  sacred  and  antiquated 
Method. 

"I  never  should  have  been  compelled  to  do  any  of  those 
things  in  that  way.     Every  man  in  your  employ  should  get 


THE    EXECUTIVE    ORGANIZATION 


313 


a  chance  to  do  anything  that  he  can  do,  the  best  way  it  can 
be  done.  You  owe  that  to  yourself  as  a  manager  and  to  the 
stockholders  as  owners.  I  came  to  this  business,  repre- 
senting my  father,  a  stockholder,  to  find  out  why  you  were 
losing  out  to  competitors.  I  know  now.  You  are  living  in 
the  day  before  yesterday;  when  there  was  no  competition 
and  no  brains  in  the  business.  There  is  no  place  here  for 
me,  because  there  is  no  place  here  for  any  man  who  thinks ; 
only  for  those  who  will  worship  the  name  over  that  door 
and  who  will  work  in  the  rut  of  the  mouldy  precedents  of 
a  by-gone  day,  and  who  will  accept  your  fiats  as  the  laws  of 
God.  Personally  you  have  been  most  courteous  and  kind, 
but  I  cannot  afford  to  work  for  you.     Good  day.  Sir." 

The  general  manager,  red  in  the  face  and  boiling  over, 
started  to  speak,  but  Jones  had  left  the  office.  This  true 
incident  from  the  life  of  a  fifty-five  year  old  president  of  one 
of  our  fairly  successful  corporations,  often  referred  to  as  a 
typical  example  of  the  old  type  organization,  describes  the 
fundamental  weakness  of  the  old  school  of  American  busi- 
ness ;  i.  €.,  inability  to  graft  new  ideas  on  the  old  line  or- 
ganization. 

What  did  the  general  manager  see  in  that  episode? 
Did  he  ask  himself — Is  this  true?  Is  my  method  wrong? 
Of  course,  he  did  not — he  saw  nothing  but  a  shocking, 
almost  unbelievable  breach  of  discipline. 

Beginning  Reform  at  the  Top 

In  the  first  chapters  we  saw  the  necessity  for  founding 
the  whole  striving  towards  efficiency  in  the  conduct  of  busi- 
ness, on  established  facts  and  deliberate,  purposeful  thinking 
about  them. 

Early  in  19 13  a  society,*  at  that  time  having  a  num- 


•  The    Efficiency    Society    (Inc.),    New    York,    reported    in    the   January,    1914. 
number  of  Greater  Efficiency,  the  organ  of  the  Society. 


314 


THINKER,     DOER    &    COMPANY 


ber  of  manufacturers  as  members,  made  an  interesting-  re- 
search among  them  to  find  out  how  their  plants  were  or- 
ganized. Thirty-five  plants  made  detailed  reports  to  the 
committee.  The  result  was  illuminating,  for  it  showed  a 
remarkable  lack  of  knowledge  of  "the  mechanics  of  or- 
ganization," to  use  the  committee's  phrase.  The  conclu- 
sions, six  in  number,  all  ring  variations  on  one  simple  and 
well  established  fact,  apparent  to  all  observers  of  commer- 
cial and  industrial  conditions,  that,  in  the  words  of  the  re- 
port: 

"Taking  into  account,  as  a  normal  condition,  that  the 
flow  of  influence  in  an  organization  is  from  the  top  down, 
it  would  seem  evident  that  increased  efficiency  will  be 
soonest  secured  by  applying  efficiency  principles  initially  to 
the  personal  operations  of  the  managers,  rather  than  to 
those  of  the  workers,  as  has  so  often  been  done." 

A  board  of  directors  in  a  large  corporation  settled  as  a 
fixed  principle  that  it  would  never  adopt  a  recommendation 
the  first  time  it  was  made.  'Tf  it  is  good  it'll  keep,"  said  a 
director,  "and  the  man  who  made  it  will  come  back  if  it's 
important." 

Managerial  Mistakes 

In  our  everyday  life  we  rarely  find  exceptional  thinking 
linked  with  exceptional  doing  in  one  man ;  and  again,  we 
find  great  thinkers  who  have  failed  to  get  the  thinking  re- 
flected in  the  doing  of  the  work. 

We  find  successful  doers  intolerant  of  rules ;  they  don't 
want  rules.  Their  organizations  are  a  good  deal  like  Topsy 
who  "just  growed."  "Sufficient  unto  the  day  is  the  evil 
thereof,"  is  a  favorite  maxim  with  such  men,  and  the  con- 
sequence is  that  no  day's  result  is  ever  an  unmixed  good. 
Most  of  such  doers  are  at  the  head  of  relatively  small  busi- 
nesses, or  larger  businesses  having  a  monopoly,  or  of  de- 


THE    EXECUTIVE    ORGANIZATION  315 

partments  in  badly  organized  businesses  where  results  are 
not  carefully  audited. 

The  head  of  the  one-man-power  organization  is  gen- 
erally a  worshipper  of  the  doer  type.  This  type  of  manager 
is  constantly  pulling  up  beets  to  see  if  they  are  growing; 
and  if  the  growth  doesn't  satisfy  the  necessities  of  the  hour, 
he  throws  the  beet  away,  with  the  consequence  that  all  the 
rest  of  the  garden  has  to  be  abnormally  productive  in  order 
to  overcome  the  waste  caused  by  the  gardener's  methods. 

One  very  large  specialty  organization  has  been  handi- 
capped by  this  sort  of  management  for  years ;  it  has  been  so 
close  a  follower  of  scientific  principles  in  other  methods, 
with  the  exception  of  the  one-man-pow^r,  that  it  has  sur- 
vived and  waxed  large,  but  has  returned  only  a  compara- 
tively small  profit  to  its  stockholders. 

A  House  Divided 

Another  company  with  a  pay-roll  of  $30,000  a  week  has 
never  had  a  plan  of  organization ;  no  two  heads  of  depart- 
ments have  ever  been  found  to  agree  on  the  duties  of  their 
respective  positions.  The  departments  overlap,  interfere 
with  one  another,  and  the  consequence  is  that  friction,  simi- 
lar to  the  Jones  incident,  is  constant.  It  is  not  the  fault  of 
the  market,  the  article,  or  the  personnel ;  it  is  the  fault  of 
an  organization  that  has  not  been  properly  functionalized. 

Generally  this  fault  arises  where  the  managers  of  a  busi- 
ness do  not  know  the  requirements  of  the  positions  they 
have  to  fill.  "Oh  let  it  work  itself  out,"  said  one  manager 
to  me,  "we  don't  want  a  lot  of  titles  about  here."  For  seven 
years  three  department  superintendents  in  that  business  have 
been  at  loggerheads,  yet  the  general  manager  has  ducked 
and  dodged  the  inevitable  readjustment.  He  has  "hoped 
things  would  work  themselves  out,"  but  they  wear  men  out, 
throttle  initiative,  and  breed  cliques  in  the  process.     This 


3i6  THINKER,    DOER    &    COMPANY 

arises,  as  Walter  Cottingham  of  the  Sherwin-Williams  Paint 
Company  says,  "from  thinking  about  things  instead  of  men," 
thinking  about  titles  instead  of  bringing  our  knowledge  of 
men  to  bear  on  the  problem. 

What  difiference  does  it  make  whether  you  call  a  man 
Manager  of  the  Waste  Baskets  or  George  Washington 
Jones?  He's  on  the  pay-roll,  isn't  he?  If  you  gave  him  a 
title  with  a  definite  statement  of  duties,  he'd  know  and  prob- 
ably take  a  pride  in  doing  his  duties  where  he  now  has  no 
particular  motive  to  do  anything  well. 

The  Planning  Department 

In  eveiy  business  there  is  talent  and  brain-power  going 
to  waste  because  it  is  misplaced.  Some  is  misplaced  be- 
cause of  defective  organization ;  some  because  the  owners 
do  not  know  what  they  can  do  best,  and  it  is  no  one's  duty 
to  discover  the  round  pegs  in  the  square  holes  and  readjust 
them. 

Hugh  Chalmers  once  remarked  that  it  was  just  as  im- 
portant to  utilize  the  brain  power  of  an  organization  as  it 
was  to  use  the  heat  units  of  a  ton  of  coal  or  get  the  full 
return  of  hours  a  day  from  each  man.  The  suggestion  sys- 
tem was  one  of  his  systematic  attempts  to  gain  that  end. 

We  must  have  an  organization  to  co-ordinate  the  inside 
brains  and  the  outside  experts,  to  weld  the  conclusions  of 
the  men  who  think  into  the  work  of  the  men  who  do;  so 
that  the  methods  arranged  by  the  expert  accountants,  the 
production  engineers,  the  sales  experts,  may  harmonize  with 
the  requirements  of  a  profitable  day's  work.  We  shall  find 
the  rough  formula  for  such  an  organization  to  be : 

First — Thinkers — experts  who  are  able  to  arrange  a 
definite  plan  of  procedure  and  prepare  instructions  by 
which  the  work  may  most  successfully  be  done. 

Second — Doers — skilful  men  who  will  take  these  plans 


THE    EXECUTIVE    ORGANIZATION 


317 


and  instructions  and  do  their  several  parts  so  that 
when  finished,  these  parts  will  exactly  fit  into  the  per- 
fect whole. 
Third — The  Puhlic — from  which  we  get  the  right  to 
serve  its  requirements  and  the  inspiration  to  antici- 
pate them ;  and  which,  therefore,  plays  the  part  in  an 
organization  which  belongs  to  the  final  arbiter  of  its 
destinies. 

Thus  we  have  what  we  may  say  is  a  modern  scientific 
organization  for  doing  business,  and  this  organization  we 
shall  call — rather  obviously — "Thinker,  Doer  &  Company." 
There  seems,  at  first,  to  be  a  very  artificial  distinction  be- 
tween the  Thinker  and  the  Doer,  because  every  successful 
man  must  be  both.  So  he  must;  but  as  a  matter  of  ex- 
perience, we  know  him  to  be  very  much  more  one  than  the 
other.  It  is  to  remedy  this  defect  of  over  emphasis  that  we 
propose  to  carry  systematically  into  the  organization  and 
conduct  of  business  the  experiences  from  all  sources — na- 
ture, politics,  the  army,  and  science. 

It  will  be  the  duty  of  all  to  think  and  do;  but  to  go  a 
step  further,  it  must  be  the  special  duty  of  those  who  have 
the  greatest  capacity  for  planning  and  thinking,  to  do  so  for 
those  who  are  best  fitted  for  other  work ;  in  other  words,  to 
bring  the  whole  up  to  the  efficiency  of  a  part.  "But,"  says 
the  auditor,  "that  planning  department,  where  the  thinking 
is  to  be  done,  is  going  to  be  an  added  cost." 

Let  Dr.  Taylor  answer  that  as  he  did  before  the  Ameri- 
can Society  of  Mechanical  Engineers : 

"It  must  be  borne  in  mind,  however,  that  with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  study  of  unit  times,  there  is  hardly  a  single 
item  of  work  done  in  the  planning  department,  which  is  not 
already  being  done  in  the  shop.  Establishing  a  planning 
department  merely  concentrates  the  planning  and  much 
other  brain  work  in  a  few  men  especially  fitted  for  their 
task  and  trained  in  their  special  lines,  instead  of  having  it 


3i8  THINKER,     DOER    &    COMPANY 

done,  as  heretofore  in  most  cases,  by  high-priced  me- 
chanics, well  fitted  to  work  at  their  trades,  but  poorly 
trained  for  work  more  or  less  clerical  in  its  nature." 

C.  E.  Knoeppel,  the  production  engineer,  says : 

"Given  a  plant  and  equipment  with  an  organization  to 
handle  the  work,  the  manufacture  of  all  that  is  designed 
by  the  engineering  department  and  sold  by  the  sales  de- 
partment can  be  handled  to  the  best  advantage,  only  when 
the  details  instead  of  being  considered  independently  by 
each  department,  are  controlled  by  one  function  which  can 
consider  each  detail  in  connection  with  all  the  others  and 
act  as  a  'clearing  house'  for  all  information  in  any  way 
affecting  the  manufacturing."* 

This  same  idea  is  used  by  the  Curtis  PubHshing  Company 
in  directing  office  help,  and  by  many  companies  in  the  man- 
agement of  salesmen ;  it  is  used  also  by  a  daily  increasing 
number  of  manufacturers  in  the  handling  of  their  workers. 

The  process  should  be  applied  to  sales  departments, 
where  it  is  sadly  needed. 

Is  it  not  a  silly  system  which  keeps  a  salesman  at  selling 
goods  when  his  originality  and  imagination  are  constantly 
working  out  new  ways  to  sell  goods  to  entirely  new  lines 
of  prospects,  and  when  he  could  be  put  to  work  to  teach  fifty 
men  how  to  increase  their  sales? 

The  burden  of  scientific  management  is  to  make  men 
more  productive  for  themselves  and  for  the  business. 

The  Taylor  and  Emerson  Systems  of  Scientific  Manage- 
ment 

There  are  several  schools  of  scientific  management,  vary- 
ing more  as  to  methods  than  as  to  principles.  There  is  a 
distinct  school  headed  by  Frederick  W.  Taylor,  the  father  of 
scientific  management  as  applied  to  factories  and  production, 
and  another  led  by  Harrington  Emerson,  the  man  who  pro- 


•  The   Practical   Introduction  of  EflRciency   Principles,  by   C.  E.   Knoeppel,   The 
Engineering    Magazine,  July,   1914. 


THE     EXECUTIVE     ORGANIZATION 


319 


duced  such  phenomenal  results  for  the  Santa  Fe  Railroad, 
and  whose  philosophy  of  efficiency  can  be  applied  to  any  of 
life's  activities. 

Dr.  Taylor  follows  the  principle  of  completely  function- 
alizing  all  work.  He  makes  an  analysis  of  any  work  into 
its  ultimate  elements ;  then  an  expert  takes  these  elements 
and  finds  how  they  can  best  be  handled  in  a  definite  way 
by  the  average  person.  If,  for  instance,  he  wanted  a  girl 
to  address  envelopes,  he  would  make  an  elaborate  time-study 
of  all  the  motions  used  in  handling  envelopes.  The  girl 
would  then  be  given  complete  written  instructions  in  the 
best  way  to  handle  the  envelope,  from  the  movement  by 
which  she  takes  it  out  of  the  box,  until  it  is  ready  for  mail- 
ing. She  would  be  drilled  in  that  work  by  an  expert  until 
she  became  proficient. 

There  would  be  one  forewoman  in  the  department  hand- 
ling such  work,  who  would  look  after  nothing  but  that  par- 
ticular work;  her  work  would  be  constantly  to  improve  the 
handling  of  envelopes. 

A  comparatively  low  price  is  paid  the  workman  that 
fails  to  produce  the  standard  amount  of  work  in  the  standard 
time,  fixed  by  the  expert,  and  the  rate  is  increased  for  each 
piece  or  unit  done  in  less  than  the  standard  time. 

The  principal  objection  to  Dr.  Taylor's  method  is  that 
it  lacks  "humaneness" — it  accents  the  machine  idea  of  the 
worker. 

Mr.  Emerson's  method,  on  the  other  hand,  makes  use 
of  the  line  and  staff  principle  of  organization;  i.  e.,  Thinkers 
and  Doers.  The  staff  is  composed  of  experts  who  instruct 
the  principal  line  officers  in  the  best  methods  of  handling  the 
work,  and  they  in  turn  instruct  the  people  below  them. 

The  staff  idea  is  simple. 

Mr.  Emerson  speaks  of  the  white  mice  which  are  a  part 
of  the  equipment  of  every  submarine.     They  object  to  leak- 


320  THINKER,     DOER    &    COMPANY 

ing  gasoline  or  escaping  hydrogen.  "The  shrill  squeaks  of 
the  mice  call  attention  to  the  danger,  and  the  commander 
who  neglects  the  warning  renders  himself  liable  to  court 
martial.  Yet  the  mice  exercise  no  authority,  and  the  com- 
mander has  no  personal  knowledge.  It  is  staff  knowledge 
acted  on  by  line  authority  that  conquers  danger." 

The  Emerson  system  appears  to  be  more  humanly  ap- 
plicable to  methods  now  in  vogue,  because  it  proceeds  grad- 
ually to  perfection.  The  Taylor  system  requires  a  strong 
initial  confidence  in  its  ultimate  success,  as  it  necessitates  a 
great  amount  of  preliminary  study;  then  the  system  must 
be  adopted  in  its  entirety  and  this  often  requires  a  complete, 
revolutionary  re-organization  of  the  work. 

Even  the  methods  of  approach  of  these  two  men,  to  the 
subject  of  business  organization,  are  fundamentally  differ- 
ent. The  Emerson  idea  is  to  take  a  business  much  as  you 
find  it  and,  by  the  application  of  exact  methods  to  the  work 
of  all  employes,  ultimately  to  raise  the  efficiency  of  the 
whole.  As  efficiency  is  raised,  the  method  by  which  it  is 
done  obtains  greater  popularity  and  energy.  Workers  will 
come  more  into  harmony  with  its  spirit  and  thus  the  de- 
veloped idea  will  become  part  and  parcel  of  their  outlook 
and  thoughts  and  acts. 

In  approaching  the  Emerson  or  Taylor  methods  it  is 
necessary  to  eliminate  the  idea  of  a  cut-and-dried  system. 
By  a  cut-and-dried  system,  I  do  not  mean  formulated  prin- 
ciples, but  the  idea  that  any  method,  expressed  in  some  cer- 
tain kinds  of  forms,  cards,  cabinets,  or  timeclocks  with  which 
some  panaceas  are  exclusively  identified,  can  be  called  sci- 
entific management. 

Efficiency  Principles  Fixed — Methods  Vary 

The  factors  that  have  to  do  with  tilings  in  any  organiza- 
tion, may  remain  much  the  same ;  but  the  factors  that  have 


THE    EXECUTIVE    ORGANIZATION 


321 


to  do  with  the  human  element  are  those  which  will  vary  the 
most.  Both  Mr.  Emerson  and  Dr.  Taylor  realize  that  the 
human  factor  is  the  vital  one. 

It  must  be  admitted  at  once,  that  efficiency  principles 
are  fixed,  while  efficient  methods  must  vary,  and  it  is  only 
with  respect  to  the  application  of  methods  that  businesses 
are  different.  Principles  are  exactly  the  same  in  Wana- 
maker's  in  New  York,  as  they  are  in  Sidney  Brock's  in  Okla- 
homa City.  It  is  important  that  we  get  the  distinction  be- 
tween these  two  things ;  e.  g.,  the  principle  that  adequate  re- 
wards must  be  paid  to  all  our  employes  is  definite  and  fixed, 
but  the  method  may  vary  from  a  day  wage  system  to  a 
bonus  and  reward  system. 

When  it  comes  to  applying  this  principle,  we  may  find 
that  a  stenographer  worth  $15  in  a  wholesale  grocery  busi- 
ness is  not  worth  more  than  $10  in  a  foundry.  So  it  is  nec- 
essary to  know  the  concrete  ways  in  which  the  application 
of  the  principles  to  your  business,  must  vary  from  their  ap- 
plication to  any  other  business. 

The  average,  inexpert  business  man  can  no  more  tell, 
and  justify  the  telling,  whether  he  is  paying  too  much  or 
too  little,  than  I  can  tell  whether  it  is  a  disordered  stomach 
or  an  eye-strain  that  is  responsible  for  your  headache. 

The  chemist  knows  before  he  compounds  a  prescription 
how  much  of  each  ingredient  he  is  to  use,  how  long  he  must 
macerate  this  or  that  ingredient,  or  let  a  liquid  percolate; 
he  is  acting  on  scientific  data.  So  the  educated  man  is  not 
content  to  copy  a  result  or  a  method,  until  he  is  familiar 
with  the  causes  that  made  it  efficient. 

The  American  Line  Idea  of  Business  Organization 

American  business  is  organized  on  one  idea ;  i.  c,  the  old 
military  system  of  organization.  General,  Colonel,  Lieuten- 
ant Colonel,  Major,  Captain,  Lieutenant,  etc.,  down  to  the 


322  THINKER,     DOER    &    COMPANY 

sergeants  and  corporals,  so  that  as  long  as  there  are  two  men 
in  a  command  there  is  one  who  will  be  boss  and  another, 
the  bossed. 

Now,  as  long  as  Smith  ran  a  country  store  and  bossed 
the  job,  his  ability  as  a  buyer  and  salesman  made  him  a 
success ;  but  when  he  went  to  the  city  and  started  a  depart- 
ment store,  he  had  a  different  problem — that  of  financing, 
distribution,  and  competition  in  which  he  had  had  no  ex- 
perience to  help  him  solve  his  difficulties. 

He  did  not  know  what  made  him  a  success ;  hence  he 
had  no  theories,  no  standards,  and  no  principles  by  which  to 
measure  men.  As  long  as  he  had  personally  dealt  with 
things ;  i.  c,  goods  and  dollars,  and  then  with  the  man  on 
the  other  side  of  the  counter,  he  had  progressed.  Now  that 
he  had  to  play  the  larger  role  of  man-maker  and  handler, 
the  old  practices  would  not  fit.  The  days  were  soon  far  too 
short,  because  he  was  trying  to  do  everything.  He  could 
not  see  departments,  he  could  only  see  the  sales ;  he  could 
not  see  men,  he  could  only  see  Sally  Laces  or  Joe  Rugs. 

When  he  was  a  sergeant  with  a  squad,  he  was  all  right ; 
but  when  he  became  a  general  of  a  brigade,  he  was  lost ;  he 
couldn't  think  Brigadier  General  thoughts. 

"We  find,"  Harrington  Emerson  said  ;*  "in  the  vast  ma- 
jority of  industrial  organizations,  autocratic  authority  at  the 
top  which  doesn't  work  through  definite  principles  or  poli- 
cies or  understandable  orders,  but  whose  word  is  law,  and 
whose  yes,  or  no,  or  nod  of  the  head  is  the  final  and  arbitrary 
statement  of  all  information." 

The  way  the  line  idea  of  organization  works  is  to  hold 
each  one  below  the  head  of  the  business  responsible,  accord- 
ing to  order  of  precedence,  for  the  proper  execution  of  a 
command,  without  the  head  exercising  any  discretion  as  to 
whether  it  should  be  directed  to  the  assistant  manager  or  to 

•  "Efficiency,"  Harrington  Emerson. 


THE    EXECUTIVE    ORGANIZATION 


323 


a  mere  clerk,  to  insure  proper  attention.  This  reminds  one 
of  the  young  man  in  the  bank  who,  when  asked  what  his 
job  was,  said  "I  am  the  doer ;  the  president  tells  the  cashier ; 
the  cashier  tells  the  teller;  the  teller  tells  the  bookkeeper; 
and  the  bookkeeper  tells  me;  and,  because  there  is  nobody 
else  to  tell,  /  do  it." 

The  Work  and  the  Man 

Follow  some  of  your  orders  from  yourself  to  the  doer. 
Analyze  what  you  are  really  starting  when  you  tell  your 
assistant  to  see  that  a  certain  thing  is  done.  Has  the  man 
who  is  actually  going  to  do  that  work,  ever  been  instructed 
how  to  do  it  with  the  least  cost  to  you  ?  If  a  great  deal  de- 
pends upon  how  it  is  done,  isn't  it  silly  to  expect  a  blind  man 
to  "carry  a  message  to  Garcia,"  no  matter  how  willing  and 
brave  and  resourceful  he  may  be?  yet  surely  it  is  no  more 
silly  than  to  ask  your  bookkeeper  to  establish  a  cost  system 
in  your  factory  or  to  assume  that,  because  a  man  has  sold 
a  lot  of  goods,  he  can  teach  others  how  to  sell.  The  work 
of  leader  is  generally  given  to  a  man  who  has  little  to  do,  or 
to  a  man  who  "gets  things  done."  Isn't  it  a  fact  that  there 
is  no  scientific  way  in  your  office  or  factory  of  being  sure 
that  the  man  who  is  most  capable  and  efficient  in  a  certain 
kind  of  work  will  get  that  work  to  do  ? 

What  is  the  remedy  ?  A  scientific  organization  in  which 
there  will  be  experts,  outside  or  inside  your  regular  organi- 
zation, to  plan  the  work  and  to  train  your  employes  to  do 
it  in  the  best  way. 

The  average  organization  has  three  parts : 

First — Financial 
Second — Manufacturing 
Third — Commercial 

These  broad  divisions  are  sometimes  charted,  as  in  the 


324  THINKER,    DOER    &    COMPANY 

National  Cash  Register  Company  or  the  Chalmers  Motor 
Company,  into  other  "pyramids"  or  columns.  Mr.  Pat- 
terson of  the  former  company,  prefers  the  "pyramid"  form 
of  graphic-charting" — the  organization  with  the  president 
at  the  apex  and  the  workers  at  the  base;  because  he  says 
"the  ordinary  business  is  a  pyramid,  all  depending  on  the 
boss."  I  do  not  know  that  I  shall  quarrel  with  Mr.  Pat- 
terson's comparison,  except  that  I  believe  that  all  is  depen- 
dent on  the  head  of  the  business,  and  his  chart  exhibits  the 
brain  in  its  usual  anatomical  location. 

The  Planned  Organization 

The  organization  which  just  grows,  as  most  of  our 
American  organizations  do,  is,  as  a  matter  of  course,  lack- 
ing in  design,  coherence,  and  harmony ;  because  these  things 
are  no  more  a  product  of  bringing  a  crowd  of  men  together 
in  a  business  than  poetry  is  the  result  of  bringing  words  to- 
gether in  a  dictionary. 

There  must  be  design. 

From  design  will  come  organization  based  on  functions, 
which  have  for  their  object  the  operations  by  which  the  de- 
sign becomes  materialized. 

But  this  is  not  enough.  Management  has  not  yet  per- 
formed its  final  function — that  of  auditing  the  performance, 
to  ascertain  three  things  : 

I — Is  it  what  we  need  ? 
2 — What  did  it  cost? 
3 — Is  it  worth  it  ? 

Most  management  is  lacking  in  design  scientifically  ad- 
justed to  marketability  of  product. 

"I  have  a  thousand  cars  without  fore  doors,"  bewailed 
an  automobile  manufacturer  in  the  summer  of  191 1.  He 
had  not  forecasted  the  influence  of  foreign  styles.     Manu- 


THE    EXECUTIVE    ORGANIZATION 


325 


facturers  generally  know  the  cost,  but  few  know  the  value, 
of  their  performances. 

A  manufacturer,  making  a  part  at  a  cost  of  seventy-one 
cents,  boasted  that  he  was  making  it  for  one-half  of  what 
it  cost  him  one  year  ago.  Across  the  street  he  could  have 
bought  it  for  forty-nine  cents. 

The  difference  lies  in  the  organization  of  the  manage- 
ment. 

Cost  keeping  is  not  efficiency  any  more  than  bookkeep- 
ing is  financing;  but  in  most  organizations  the  cost  de- 
partment functions  as  an  audit  of  factory  efficiency,  and  yet 
it  does  so  without  efficiency  cost  standards. 

Where  such  methods  obtain  a  foothold,  however,  we 
find  paper  profits,  dry  rot,  and  re-organizations,  because 
balance  sheets  alone  have  never  been  safe  guides  for  man- 
agement. 

Fatal  Economy 

"We  were  deceived  by  a  penurious  secretary,"  said  a 
stockholder  after  the  obsequies.  "When  others  were  spend- 
ing money  for  advertising,  we  'saved'  it ;  wdien  others  were 
increasing  commissions  to  their  salesmen,  we  told  our  men 
how  great  we  were ;  when  our  competitors  were  lowering 
prices,  we  were  talking  about  quality ;  our  balance  sheets 
were  all  right  until  we  struck  the  toboggan.  Then  it  was 
too  late.  We  had  'saved'  ourselves  into  bankruptcy.  Our 
secretary  was  a  good  credit  man ;  he  was  a  wizard  at  figures. 
As  a  credit  man  he  was  worth  five  thousand  dollars  a  year : 
as  a  purchasing  agent,  probably  nothing;  and  as  an  auditor 
of  the  values  of  the  work  of  our  sales,  advertising,  and  pro- 
motion departments,  he  hasn't  been  worth  ten  dollars  a 
week." 

It  was  the  failure  of  the  one-man  business  again.  The 
management  wasn't  functionalized.     The  ten-dollar-a-week 


326  THINKER,     DOER    &    COMPANY 

sales  knowledge  of  a  five-thousand-dollar-a-year  credit  man 
was  used  to  check  up  a  forty-eight-hundred-dollar-a-year 
sales  manager.    The  result  was  a  catastrophe. 

Elements  of  Good  Management 

The  basic  principles  of  all  rational  management  are 
simple.    A.  Hamilton  Church  puts  them  very  clearly : 

I — Systematic  use  of  experience 

He  does  not  say  personal  experience,  but  all  experi- 
ence. The  secretary  just  referred  to  failed  to  use  any  but 
personal  experience.  He  drew  on  his  ten-dollar-a-week 
sales  and  advertising  experiences  and  got  what  was  coming 
to  him. 

2 — Economic  control  of  effort 

The  main  purpose  is  to  conserve  energy,  not  to  waste  it, 
because  energized  time  is  what  you  pay  for. 

3 — Promotion  of  personal  efficiency 

"Rational  Management,"  as  Mr.  Church  calls  it,  does 
not  expect  workers  to  find  out  how.  Rational  management 
knows  that  only  the  exceptional  worker,  no  matter  what  the 
spur  or  reward,  will  win  without  help.  Rational  manage- 
ment plays  averages.  George  J.  Whelan,  president  of  the 
United  Cigar  Stores  Company*  said  that  it  was  the  busi- 
ness of  his  company  to  look  after  the  feet  of  their  clerks, 
because  no  clerk  with  aching  feet  can  do  justice  to  his  work. 
The  U.  C.  S.  Company  gives  its  clerks  a  share  in  the  sales, 
not  the  profits,  because  to  give  them  a  share  in  the  profits 
would  put  a  premium  on  selling  the  big  profit  goods.  "We 
don't  want,"  said  Mr.  Whelan,  "the  profit  on  the  goods  at 
the  expense  of  the  profit  on  the  trade." 


•  Interview  in  Printers'  Ink,  New  York. 


CHAPTER    XXVII 

THE  LINE  AND  STAFF  SYSTEM 

Nothing  should  be  ordered  which  it  was  conceivable 
could  be  carried  out  by  the  proper  oihcers  without  orders. 

— Von  Moltke. 

And  indeed  it  may  be  set  down  as  a  general  rule  that 
lack  of  Efficiency  in  any  plant  is,  in  the  main,  chargeable 
to  the  executive  organization  rather  than  to  the  work- 
men. *  *  * — Benjamin  A.  Franklin,  "Cost  Keeping 
and  the  Executive." 

If  you  think  a  thought  worth  while,  I  beg  you,  Man,  jot 
it  down. — Alfred  Henry  Lewis. 

From  the  shores  of  Galilee,  the  banks  of  Avon,  and  the 
leafy  lanes  of  Concord  there  still  issue  greater  forces 
than  proceed  from  our  largest  modern  cities.  We  may  live 
and  rest  in  the  assured  faith,  that  whatever  may  seem  to 
rule  in  this  nation,  the  Thinker  is,  and  always  will  be, 
our  Master. — John  Calder,  Engineer. 

Line  and  Staff  Organization 

Wherever  you  find  a  successful  business  in  a  highly  com- 
petitive field,  you  will  find  it  due  to  highly  developed  think- 
ing. 

But  the  three  column  formation  is  simply  a  functional 
division,  too  frequently  without  co-ordination.  The  present 
need  is  to  carry  the  functioning  further  into  the  work  of  each 
of  the  three  great  divisions,  financial,  manufacturing,  and 
commercial,  and  more  particularly  into  the  manufacturing 
and  commercial.  Of  these,  the  only  one  that  has  so  far  not 
been  the  subject  of  real  scientific  treatment  is  the  commer- 
cial. 

3^7 


328  THINKER,     DOER    &    COMPANY 

In  answer  to  the  problem  of  co-ordinating  the  three 
column  formation,  we  have  the  staff-and-line  scheme  of  or- 
ganization. 

First — The  Staff  (Thinkers) 

Composed  of  experts,  not  officers  in  any  department, 
each  of  whom  knows  all  about  some  branch  of  the 
company's  business  and  of  other  businesses ;  and  hired 
specialists,  such  as  accountants,  production  experts, 
market  experts,  advertising  experts,  and  office  ex- 
perts, who  may  be  permanently  employed,  on  part- 
time  contracts,  or  merely  consulting  counsel. 

Duties — To  determine  the  most  efficient  methods  of  do- 
ing the  work. 

Second — The  Line  (Doers) 

Composed  of  the  department  heads,  assistant  heads,  and 

employes  so  arranged  according  to  definite  lines  of 

authority  as  to  have  someone  always  in  charge  of  each 

line. 

Duties — To  execute  the  orders  of  the  stafif  in  the  manner 

prescribed,  and  to  make  use  of  the  expert  assistance  of  the 

staff  whenever  unusual  conditions  arise. 

The  Staff  Idea 

An  army  staff  makes  use  of  the  brains  of  the  army  for 
the  benefit  of  all.  A  captain  may  know  more  about  artillery 
than  the  general  of  the  artillery  brigade.  That  captain  is 
called  to  staff  service.  An  advertising  man  may  know  more 
about  the  analysis  of  markets  than  a  general  manager;  yet 
in  one  large  corporation  he  was  not  even  made  a  member  of 
the  sales  committee.  A  factory  foreman  may  know  more 
about  the  heat  treatment  of  steel  than  a  factory  manager. 

The  line  can  always  furnish  stories  of  officers  who  have 
to  take  lessons  from  the  ranks. 


THE    LINE    AND     STAFF    SYSTEM  329 

Business  must  meet  such  conditions,  as  von  Moltke  met 
a  similar  emergency  for  Prussia  by  organizing  a  staff  of 
experts. 

The  work  of  the  staff  may  be  summarized  as  follows : 

First — To  lay  down  the  plan  on  which  the  business  shall 
be  developed ;  then  to  determine  the  department  which 
shall  carry  out  each  part  of  the  plan. 

Second — To  determine  to  what  particular  men  shall  be 
assigned  each  particular  work,  and  to  prepare 
standardized  instructions  by  w^hich  it  shall  be  done 
most  efficiently;  i.  e.,  at  the  greatest  saving  of  ex- 
pense, worry,  and  effort. 

Third — To  arrange  a  just  system  of  compensation  to 
reward  the  most  efficient  and  to  penalize  the  inef- 
ficient. 

Fourth — To  surround  the  workers  with  the  mental, 
moral,  and  physical  conditions  which  expedite  work. 

Fifth — To  prepare  a  code  of  principles  which  shall  em- 
body the  policy  of  the  house  towards  outsiders  and 
insiders. 

Sixth — To  prepare  a  system  of  promotions,  so  that  em- 
ployes may  know  what  advancement  awaits  them  in 
case  they  make  better  than  good. 

Seventh — To  show  by  charts  and  explanations  of  the 
organization  at  large  just  what  part  each  employe 
takes  in  the  general  scheme. 

Eighth — To  lay  down  rules  for  the  conduct  of  the  en- 
tire organization;  and  if  any  man,  from  the  general 
manager  up  or  down,  is  permitted  to  break  these  rules, 
to  fix  the  rules  so  that  the  exception  may  be  cared 
for. 

Ninth — To  make  every  man,  woman,  and  child  in  the 
organization  understand  that  there  is  a  certain  person 


330  THINKER,     DOER    &    COMPANY 

to  whom  he  or  she  may  go  for  guidance  in  the  transac- 
tion of  any  part  of  the  company's  business,  no  matter 
how  small,  from  the  sweeping  of  the  floor  to  the  bor- 
rowing of  a  million  dollars  from  the  bank. 

Tenth — To  organize  such  clubs  and  societies  in  the  or- 
ganization for  the  guidance,  entertainment,  and  train- 
ing of  the  employes,  as  shall  show  that  the  house 
really  means  to  do  the  things  that  it  says  shall  be 
done. 

Eleventh — To  make  it  as  interesting  to  do  the  work  in 
the  prescribed  way  as  it  is  for  the  players  in  a  base- 
ball game  to  follow  the  signals  of  the  manager ;  to  put 
the  same  zest  into  the  game  of  business  that  is  now 
put  into  the  games  that  the  men  play  out  of  working 
hours. 

Will  Cure  Two  Evils 

The  purpose  of  the  staff  idea  is  to  eliminate  that  style 
of  organization  in  which  Manager  Brown  rows  ahead  to 
starboard  while  Manager  Smith  backs  water  to  port,  with 
the  consequence  that  the  business  turns  about  in  a  circle, 
to  the  confusion  of  the  passengers.  We  want  also  to  over- 
come that  condition  which  is  best  described  by  the  office  boy 
who,  when  he  was  asked  who  was  the  responsible  man  in  the 
office,  said  :  'T  do  not  know  who  is  responsible,  but  I  know 
I  get  all  the  blame." 

The  staff  idea  prevents  the  over-development  of  depart- 
ments at  the  expense  of  the  business.  "I  have  found,"  said 
the  report  of  a  new  general  manager  to  his  board  of  direc- 
tors, "that  each  department  is  of  itself  a  small  business, 
with  its  own  files,  methods  of  hiring,  statistical  practices, 
standards  of  performance,  and  even  in  some  cases,  pur- 
chasing clerks,  with  an  utter  lack  of  schematic  harmony  as 
to  forms,  stationery,  equipment,  and  practice." 


THE    LINE    AND     STAFF    SYSTEM 


331 


Probably  the  greatest  loss  in  this  method  of  organiza- 
tion is  in  the  railroads  where  the  Tenth  Assistant  Passen- 
ger Agent  will  not  receive  suggestions  from  the  Eleventh 
Assistant  Passenger  Agent. 

Titles  in  large  organizations  become  fetishes  instead  of 
handles. 

"You  know,"  said  a  bank  teller,  "I  am  not  supposed  to 
know  enough  about  the  assistant  cashier's  work  to  make  a 
suggestion  today  at  4  o'clock;  but  if  he  should  die  tonight, 
at  9  o'clock  tomorrow  morning  1  would  without  question  be 
entrusted  with  his  duties." 

"What  does  he  know  about  making  typewriters,"  sneered 
the  factory  superintendent,  "he's  only  the  bookkeeper."  Four 
years  afterward  that  bookkeeper  sold  to  another  company 
his  idea  for  a  new  carriage  for  seventy-five  thousand  dollars. 

The  Objective  Attitude 

Just  as  I  depended  on  an  assistant  who  had  never  handled 
the  machine  to  prepare  an  instruction  book  to  show  others 
how  to  handle  it,*  so  all  successful  advertising  is  written 
by  the  prospective  customer.  Selling  is  the  same ;  all  sell- 
ing lies  in  getting  the  customer  to  sell  himself. 

The  principle  lies  in  the  objective  attitude  rather  than 
the  subjective. 

But  that  objective  attitude  is  the  most  difficult  thing  for 
the  average  business  man  to  achieve.  He  places  his  specialty 
above  all  others ;  he  rarely  looks  into  his  business,  and  too 
seldom  looks  out  of  it. 

Not  only,  therefore,  does  the  manager  of  the  average 
business  fail  to  use  the  talent  inside  his  business,  but  scorn- 
fully resents  the  idea  that  the  outside  expert  can  be  of  any 
help. 

The  staff  and  line  organization,  however,  goes  beyond 

•  See  page  250. 


332  THINKER,    DOER    &    COMPANY 

the  mere  desultory  and  spasmodic  use  of  outside  experts.  It 
requires  that  the  staff  be  used  by  the  hue  every  day  in  small 
as  well  as  large  ways. 

The  House  J.  P.  Morgan  Built 

Consider  for  a  moment  the  personnel  of  a  house  like 
that  of  J.  P.  Morgan  &  Company,  New  York. 

Specialization  finds  its  place  in  the  organization  of  a 
great  banking  house.  To  do  constructive  financial  work, 
men  must  be  employed  who  are  more  than  bankers;  they 
must  be  constructive  bankers.  They  must  look  on  banking 
as  the  vitalizing  influence  in  the  commercial  body.  To  do 
that  they  must  understand  commerce  in  all  its  roots  and 
branches.  The  average  banker  understands  financing, 
credits,  law,  the  conservation  features  of  commerce,  but  he 
is  frequently  a  failure  as  a  producer  in  a  factory  sense  and  as 
a  distributer  in  the  sense  of  salesmanship  and  advertising. 

In  accounting  for  the  power  of  the  Morgan  house,  a 
recent  writer  analyzed  the  men  who  are  the  brains  in  the 
firm: 

Henry  P.  Davison  is  the  accountant,  the  analyzer  of  figures. 

Charles  Steele  is  the  legal  expert,  "the  past  master  of  corpora- 
tion  law." 

Edward  P.  Stotesbury  is  the  specialist  in  coal  and  transportation. 

William  H.  Porter  is  the  man  who  watches  the  ebb  and  flow  of 
trade  and  credit  in  dry  goods,  flour,  produce,  and  luxuries. 

Thomas  W.  Lamont  is  the  salesman,  the  advertiser,  the  student 
of  public  opinion,  the  judge  of  publishing  properties. 

Temple  Bowdoin,  Arthur  E.  Newbold,  and  Horatio  G.  Lloyd  are 
the  students  and  experts  in  railroads,  steamships,  and  international 
banking. 

J.  P.  Morgan,  himself,  used  his  special  training  in  international 
exchange  and  credits.  He  it  was  who  made  the  house  an  international 
power. 

The  truth  of  the  matter  is,  the  firm  of  Morgan  is  a  big 
bank  just  in  proportion  as  it  is  a  big  business.  It  will  be 
big  just  in  proportion  as  it  knows  best  what  it  has  to  do  in 


THE-   LINE    AND     STAFF    SYSTEM 


333 


the  new  order  of  things.  It  is  learning  all  the  time  to  cater 
to  the  public,  if  we  take  as  bona  Ude  its  withdrawal  in  1913 
from  the  directorates  of  many  corporations.  But  the  big- 
ness of  the  house  lies  in  the  business  equipment  of  its  mem- 
bers. 

The  important  thing  is  to  make  your  organization  un- 
derstand exactly  what  the  thinkers  are  there  to  do,  and  to 
make  the  doers  on  their  part  understand  what  they  are  there 
to  think. 

Staff  Versus  Committee 

One  difficulty  growing  out  of  our  present  style  of  or- 
ganization, which  is  along  the  military  lines  existing  be- 
fore 1865,  is  that  each  department  head  is  supreme  in  his 
department;  he  makes  rules  which  frequently  interfere  with 
the  efficient  handling  of  the  business  of  the  house,  for  each 
one  has  his  own  system ;  each  does  the  work  as  he  sees  fit 
and  looks  only  after  that  which  he  originates  and  on  which 
he  depends  for  credit. 

The  line  officer  is  interested  in  suppressing  all  facts 
which  will  interfere  with  the  condition  in  which  he  shall  be 
the  cock-of-the-walk  in  his  own  department.  Under  such 
conditions  we  have  the  Jones  episodes*  where  men  are  dis- 
charged for  the  insubordination  that  really  makes  for  greater 
efficiency ;  the  real  cause  of  this  condition  is  not  grasped  by 
the  standpat  mind  of  the  line  officer. 

When  the  breach  of  a  rule  makes  more  money  than  its 
observance,  it's  time  to  look  for  cobwebs  in  the  managerial 
brain.  In  some  places  the  staff  idea  is  carried  out  in  the  Plan- 
ning Department.  This  is  especially  applicable  to  a  manu- 
facturing plant.  The  Tabor  Manufacturing  Company  had 
twenty  men  in  the  planning  department,  and  seventy-five 
men  in  the  plant,  but  turned  out  two  to  three  times  as  much 

•  Chapter  XXVI. 


334 


THINKER,     DOER    &     COMPANY 


work  as  when  the  shop  had  one  hundred  and  five  men,  and 
no  planning  department.  This  is  an  excellent  sample  of 
the  results  where  organized  thinking  is  applied  to  organized 
doing. 

The  committee  idea  as  a  substitute  for  a  stafif  has  rarely 
paid  in  efficiency.  In  the  first  place,  the  committees  are 
generally  made  up  of  line  men  who  have  their  own  work 
to  look  out  for  and  are  not  likely  to  look  out  for  the  other 
man's  work  or  for  the  good  of  the  business  at  large.  In  the 
second  place,  the  men  composing  the  committee  are  generally 
busy  with  actual  work ;  i.  e.,  looking  after  a  few  or  many 
producers ;  and  they  feel  that  the  time  taken  by  the  com- 
mittee in  general  discussion  interferes  with  the  work  for 
which  they  are  responsible.  In  the  third  place,  the  com- 
mittee is  not  made  up  of  experts.  The  sales  manager  is 
passing  on  his  own  policies  or  on  policies  of  the  merit  of 
which  he  knows  nothing.  Multiplying  the  knowledge  of 
one  man  by  the  ignorance  of  ten  rarely  helps  to  increase  the 
efficiency  of  the  one. 

But  the  committee  system  is  good  for  the  discussion  of 
poHcies  after  their  formulation,  the  discussion  of  disciplinary 
measures,  and  to  build  up,  as  Charles  U.  Carpenter,  Presi- 
dent of  the  Fire-Proof  Furniture  and  Construction  Com- 
pany, says:  (a)  a  spirit  of  co-operation;  (b)  mutual  edu- 
cation by  free  interchange  of  thought;  (c)  cultivation  of 
ambition;  (d)  a  close  system  of  control. 

But  to  expect  a  committee  of  shop  foremen  to  prepare 
a  code  of  practice  by  which  to  handle  the  belts  in  a  factory, 
will  get  nowhere.  To  expect  a  committee  to  prepare  the 
copy  for  a  series  of  magazine  advertisements  is  equally 
futile. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  conference  on  a  campaign  of  ad- 
vertising is  very  valuable,  but  even  there  the  advertising 
manager  will  have  to  be  careful  not  to  permit  the  copy  to 


THE    LINE    AND     STAFF    SYSTEM 


335 


be  emasculated  by  the  preferences  of  engineering  minds  for 
cant  phrases  of  shop  dignity. 

Committee  time  is  too  often  taken  up  with  details  that 
could  be  better  left  to  the  heads  of  departments.  Com- 
mittees should  not  be  concerned  with  post-mortems,  ex- 
cept as  the  latter  may  help  to  formulate  policies  to  govern 
future  business.  Committees  rarely  know  anything  about 
the  technical  methods  by  which  a  decision  must  be  car- 
ried out,  or  even  whether  it  can  be  carried  out  at  all;  they 
generally  degenerate  into  registering  the  ideas  of  their 
dominant  spirit. 

In  my  experience  committees  have  been  of  little  prac- 
tical value  because  the  majority  of  the  men  didn't  know 
anything  about  the  subjects;  and  because  they  knew  noth- 
ing, they  took  but  little  interest  in  the  discussions.  Mat- 
ters that  should  have  come  up  were  generally  ignored; 
heads  of  departments  naturally  brought  up  subjects  with 
which  the  other  members  were  not  personally  concerned; 
or,  if  they  were,  it  was  because  each  hoped  to  get  a  de- 
cision in  favor  of  his  contention  as  against  that  of  another. 
Before  such  a  court,  made  up  of  men  with  no  expert 
knowledge  of  the  merits  of  the  contentions,  judgments 
were  frequently  rendered  which  had  to  be  ignored  because 
of  obvious  impracticability. 

Mark  Twain  on  Expert  Knowledge 

In  one  of  his  serious  moments,  Mark  Twain  described 
a  church  assemblage  of  five  hundred  people;  and  his  de- 
scription might,  with  some  changes,  apply  to  a  business: 

"Men  are  usually  competent  thinkers  along  the  lines 
of  their  specialized  training  only.  Within  these  limits  alone 
are  their  opinions  and  judgments  valuable;  outside  of  these 
limits  they  grope  and  are  lost — usually  without  knowing  it. 
In  a  church  assemblage  of  500  persons,  there  will  be  a  man 
or  two  whose  trained  mind  can  seize  upon  each  detail  of  a 


336  THINKER,     DOER    &    COMPANY 

great  manufacturing  scheme  and  recognize  its  value  or  lack 
of  value  promptly;  he  can  pass  the  details  in  intelligent 
review,  section  by  section,  and  finally  as  a  whole,  and  then 
deliver  a  verdict  upon  the  scheme  which  cannot  be  flip- 
pantly set  aside  or  easily  answered.  And  there  will  be  one 
or  two  other  men  there  who  can  do  the  same  thing  with  a 
great  and  complicated  educational  project;  and  one  or  two 
others  who  can  do  the  like  with  a  large  scheme  for  apply- 
ing electricity  in  a  new  and  unheard-of  way,  and  one  or  two 
others  who  can  do  it  with  a  showy  scheme  for  revolutioniz- 
ing the  scientific  world's  accepted  notions  regarding  geology. 
And  so  on,  and  so  on.  But  the  manufacturing  experts  will 
not  be  competent  to  examine  the  educational  scheme  in- 
telligently, their  opinion  about  it  would  not  be  valuable; 
neither  of  these  two  groups  will  be  able  to  understand  and 
pass  upon  the  electrical  scheme ;  none  of  these  three  batches 
of  experts  will  be  able  to  understand  and  pass  upon  the 
geological  revolution ;  probably  not  one  man  in  the  whole 
lot  would  be  competent  to  examine,  capably,  the  intricacies 
of  political  or  religious  schemes,  new  or  old,  and  deliver 
judgment  upon  it  which  anyone  would  regard  as  precious. 
The  whole  500  are  thinkers,  and  they  are  all  capable  think- 
ers— but  only  within  the  narrow^  limits  of  their  special- 
ized training." 

Staff  and  Committee  Co-operation 

Directors  and  stockholders  of  corporations  are  begin- 
ning to  see  this  truth.  They  understand  now  that  it  is  not 
good  business  to  permit  97  per  cent  financiers  to  pass  on 
matters  in  which  80  per  cent  of  the  problem  is  selling. 

The  real  difficulty  with  the  railroads  is  not  inherent 
in  railroading,  but  is  inherent  in  financing.  A  banker  is 
not  a  railroad  man.  A  railroad's  first  duty  is  to  be  an  effi- 
cient railroad  all  the  time,  and  a  vehicle  by  which  stocks 
may  be  regulated  by  monthly  reports  only  as  a  remote 
consequence  of  its  efficiency. 

As  long  as  bankers  want  good  monthly  reports  and  in- 
sist on  managements  that  can  produce  such  reports,  rates 
will  always  be  more  important  than  service. 


THE    LINE    AND    STAFF    SYSTEM 


337 


The  chief  merit  of  the  committee  system  lies  in  the 
discussion  of  inter-departmental  routine  and  problems,  of 
the  common  problems  of  the  office  and  factory,  and  in 
acting  in  a  purely  advisory  way  on  the  application  of  rules 
and  policies.  The  only  time  the  committee  really  becomes 
valuable,  however,  is  when  a  staff  organization  meets  with 
the  committee  to  guide  its  deliberations. 

Application  of  the  Staff  Idea 

An  excellent  example  of  the  committee  idea  is  the 
manner  in  which  the  editorial  staff  of  a  popular  weekly 
handles  its  staff  meetings,  although  the  word  "staff"  is 
not  used  here  as  we  consider  it  in  this  chapter. 

"Every  week,"  says  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott,  the  editor, 
"the  staff  of  The  Outlook  meets  for  conference.  We 
spend  between  two  and  three  hours  in  discussing  the  ques- 
tions which  are  to  be  treated  editorially  in  the  next  issue 
of  the  paper.  Every  member  of  the  staff  is  free  to  ex- 
press his  own  opinion  and  to  urge  it  with  all  the  argu- 
ments at  his  command.  The  discussion  ended,  the  Editor- 
in-Chief  decides  what  position  The  Outlook  shall  take  on 
the  question  under  discussion,  and  assigns  the  treatment 
to  some  member  of  the  staff  who  is  in  sympathy  with  that 
view." 

Mark  you  that  "the  editor-in-chief  decides  what  posi- 
tion" the  paper  shall  take,  and  he  gives  the  work  of  re- 
flecting that  position  or  opinion  to  one  "in  sympathy  with 
that  view." 

This  conference,  as  all  committee  work  should  be,  is 
purely  advisory.  The  staff  idea  in  business,  however,  goes 
further.  While  the  general  manager  has  the  power  of 
veto,  he  rarely  uses  it,  because  the  staff  whose  advice  is 
not  taken,  generally  has  a  fool  for  a  manager  or  the  man- 
ager has  blockheads  for  a  staff. 


338  THINKER,     DOER    &    COMPANY 

Any  application  of  the  staff  idea  must  have  at  least 
three  purposes: 

One  to  test  the  7nan  stuff  of  the  organization. 
Another  for  the  handling  and  testing  of  materials  and 

equipment,    to    find    out    whether    they    are    exactly 

suited  to  the  most  efificient  production. 
Another  for  the  planning  and  testing  of  the  methods 

by  which  this  man,  material,  and  equipment   may 

be  handled  most  productively. 

Using  the  Man  Power 

Let  us  consider  the  question  of  men.  Hardly  any  em- 
ployer of  fifty  men  has  a  working  knowledge  of  the  abili- 
ties of  20  per  cent  of  them.  As  a  preliminary,  an  em- 
ployer of  nearly  three  thousand  men  asked  his  superin- 
tendent: 

I — Which  men  know  the  most  about  all  of  the  dif- 
ferent things  that  we  do? 

2 — By  what  process  do  we  insure  that  we  always  get 
the  expert  doers  of  certain  work  into  the  depart- 
ments where  they  belong,  and  give  them  the  work 
they  know  best  how  to  do? 

3 — What  process  do  we  have  of  promoting  people, 
other  than  the  time-clock  and  the  calendar? 

4 — What  process  have  we  of  insuring  that  we  get 
the  use  of  all  the  original  thought,  experience, 
study,  invention,  and  initiative  of  the  entire  organi- 
zation, by  directing  it  into  channels  where  it  will 
most  ef^ciently  serve  both  the  organization  in  gen- 
eral and  the  individual  in  particular? 

If  these  questions  cannot  be  answered,  can  a  manager 
say  that  he  knows  the  machine  he  is  handling? 

As  a  matter  of  policy  in  handling  the  labor  problems 


THE    LINE    AND     STAFF    SYSTEM 


339 


in  a  factory  employing  five  thousand  men,  the  president 
of  another  company  issued  this  order:  "The  Factory  Com- 
mittee will  keep  fully  informed  as  to  the  conditions  exist- 
ing in  other  shops,  and  will  thus  be  able  to  compare  our 
conditions  with  those  of  other  factories." 

Salesman  and  Selling  Methods 

In  training  salesmen,  it  is  necessary  for  the  stalY  to  be 
able  to  furnish  everyone  in  the  sales  department  with  the 
following: 

First — Knowledge  of  the  goods  on  the  technical  and 
man  side  alike.     This  is  absolutely  necessary  to  the 
salesmen  of  every  concern 
Second — Collective  training  in  schools  or  classes 
Third — Individual  training  by  correspondence 
Fourth — A  simple,  accurate  method  by  which  sales- 
men may  report  what  they  are  doing  and  how  they 
are  doing  it 

Every  salesman  ought  to  be  placed  in  possession  of: 

I — The  best  way  to  show  the  goods 

2 — The  strongest  talking  features  of  the  commodity 

3 — Its  uses  to  the  customers 

4 — The  strongest  answers  to  all  the  stock  objections 

5 — The  best  methods  of  approaching  customers 

6 — An  analysis  of  the  class  of  trade  he  is  going  after 

7 — An   analysis   of   the   business   done   before   in    the 

territory 
8 — An  analysis  of  the  business  expected 

The  staff  will  w^ork  out  the  figures  on  the  business  to 
be  expected  and  then  elaborate  the  sales  policy  and  defi- 
nite instructions  for  carrying  it  out.  The  following  was 
a  staff  statement  of  sales  policy  to  sales  managers  of  a 
specialty  house: 


340 


THINKER,    DOER    &    COMPANY 


First — The  salesman  makes  the  sale. 

Second — The  thousands  of  dollars  spent  in  railroad 
fares,  hotel  bills,  and  advertising,  are  all  going  to 
naught  unless  you  make  your  men  closers. 

Third — The  man  who  isn't  loyal  is  a  liability,  not  ari 
asset,  no  matter  what  his  production. 

Fourth — Salesmen  are  average  men,  and  most  of  us 
only  average  salesmen. 

Fifth — We  can  be  taught  to  sell  more  goods,  just  as 
managers  have  learned  how  to  manage. 

Sixth — The  object  of  this  sales  department  is  to  in- 
crease the  efficiency  of  the  men  who  sell. 

Seventh — The  sales  organization  is  here  not  to  cut 
prices  but  to  raise  them. 

Eighth — It  is  not  to  sell  the  poor,  but  the  best,  grades. 

Ninth — It  is  not  to  cut  profits,  but  expenses. 

Tenth — It  is  not  to  coddle  ioo%  men,  but  to  make 
them. 

Eleventh — It  is  not  to  break  decisions,  but  to  push  them. 

Twelfth — It  is  not  to  play  favorites,  but  to  play  fair. 

Thirteenth — It  is  to  get  co-operation  by  giving  it. 

Fourteenth — To  give  everything  for  the  good  of  the 
company. 

The  Staff  Idea  Applied  to  Salesmanship 

In  discussing  the  factory  organization  and  its  bearing 
on  the  policy  of  fixing  quotas  for  salesmen,  a  manufac- 
turer asked:  "We  fix  quotas  for  our  men  by  territories, 
yet  our  office  correspondents  handle  inquiries  and  dis- 
tribute advertising  all  over  the  country.  Would  it  not 
be  better  to  divide  our  sales  correspondence  department 
into  territories,  also,  and  put  standards  on  each  division 
and  thus  let  it  co-ordinate  with  our  sales  divisions?" 

That  idea  works,  of  course,  in  mail-order  houses,  such 


THE    LINE    AND     STAFF    SYSTEM 


341 


as  the  National  Cloak  &  Suit  Company  of  New  York.  The 
manufacturer  saw  the  opportunity  to  harmonize  effort. 
Wherever  the  handling  of  inquiries  calls  for  expert  knowl- 
edge of  different  lines  of  prospects,  the  work  is  functional 
and  should  have  a  reviewing  authority.  Wherever  the 
sales  results  from  the  field  are  judged  territorially,  the  effi- 
ciency of  the  work  done  by  the  correspondence  depart- 
ment should  be  arranged  for  similar  comparison.  Thus 
you  get  the  stimulus  of  one  crew  inside  as  well  as  outside, 
working  for  a  record  against  another.  The  men  in  the 
field  get  more  help,  and  larger  results  come  to  the  com- 
pany. 

In  a  concern  selling  machines  direct  to  consumers,  the 
ideal  of  the  line  was  to  have  a  large  number  of  salesmen, 
with  managers,  district  managers,  etc.,  but  sales  did  not 
increase  in  proportion  to  the  increase  of  men.  The  reason 
should  have  been  self-evident.  Adding  men  to  an  organi- 
zation does  not  often  increase  its  efficiency;  only  its  bulk. 
The  one  hundred  salesmen  collectively  knew  no  more 
about  the  product  than  fifty  had  known.  No  new  lines 
of  business  or  uses  had  been  opened  up  by  the  addition  of 
the  fifty  men. 

To  an  almost  unlimited  extent,  the  efficiency  of  a  sales 
organization  is  in  direct  proportion  to  its  knowledge  of 
the  business. 

No  accurate  analysis  of  the  possible  uses  to  which  ma- 
chines could  be  put  in  new  lines  of  business  that  had  not 
been  developed,  had  ever  been  made.  The  line  idea — 
learn  by  doing — was  in  full  sway.  The  business  will  have 
to  come  through  the  stafT  idea.  Men  must  be  employed 
for  their  expert  knowledge  of  the  process  of  selling  and 
of  the  adaptation  of  the  company's  product  to  the  needs 
of  customers  who  do  not  know  the  value  of  that  product. 

The  staff  will  employ  men  to  make  direct  field  studies 


342 


THINKER,     DOER    &    COMPANY 


of  the  possibilities  of  the  use  of  the  machine.  The  stafif 
will  develop  customers  from  prospects  by  showing  them 
how  they  can  save  money  by  using  the  company's  product. 
The  staff  will  at  the  same  time  teach  the  salesmen  how  to 
sell  the  product  by  applying  it  to  the  prospect's  needs. 
The  staff  will  re-organize  the  sales  department's  work  on 
a  functional  basis  and  will  develop  the  line  on  a  basis  of 
vocational  selling;  that  is,  it  will  put  specially  trained 
men  in  congested  districts  to  sell  to  certain  lines  of  busi- 
ness. 

Then  the  standardized  instructions  to  sales  managers 
will  follow,  and  each  one  will  be  convinced  by  the  board  of 
directors  that  the  staff  is  there  for  the  sake  of  even  the 
youngest  salesman,  not  the  salesman  for  the  sake  of  the 
staff.  Each  man  in  the  field  will  understand  that  every 
salesman  has  room  for  a  manager's  contract  in  his  order- 
book. 

The  field  managers  can't  do  this  because  they  are  busy 
with  the  present — with  this  month's  business ;  they  haven't 
time  to  think  about  future  years  or  to  work  out  plans  for 
next  year.  The  scientific  attitude  expressed  in  staff  work 
is  often  shown  in  the  way  the  more  business-like  analysis 
of  conditions  affects  demand. 

Planning  a  Cereal  Campaign 

When  the  Kellogg  Toasted  Corn  Flake  Company,  of 
Battle  Creek,  Michigan,  was  about  to  start  its  nation- 
wide campaign,  it  realized  that  the  vital  part  of  that  cam- 
paign must  be  accomplished  before  it  began.  It  was  a 
matter  of  critical  importance  to  define  what  it  was  going 
to  do,  based  upon  what  could  be  done. 

The  first  thing  the  company  did  was  to  get  some 
accurate  information  about  the  policies  that  had  failed 
with    previous    organizations    handling    a    cereal.       They 


THE    LINE    AND     STAFF    SYSTEM 


343 


found  this  out  in  various  ways.  Men  came  to  them  who 
had  held  positions  with  those  failures.  Some  had  been  in 
touch  with  the  vitals  of  the  old  businesses.  They  were 
taken  on  as  employes  and  given  an  opportunity  to  show 
what  they  knew  about  the  experiences  of  the  cereal  busi- 
ness. The  Kellogg  people  determined  to  find  out,  by 
scientific  analysis,  exactly  what  were  the  unsuccessful 
things  about  old  policies;  they  determined  these  by  analy- 
sis and  coordination.  In  order  to  do  that,  they  had  to 
study  the  thing  at  first  hand;  they  had  to  get  facts  and 
figures. 

The  first  policy  agreed  on  was  that  Toasted  Corn 
Flakes  would  not  be  sold  as  a  patent  medicine;  it  wouldn't 
be  sold  as  a  cure  for  any  human  ills;  it  would  be  sold 
purely  and  simply  as  a  good  food,  a  practical  food,  one 
that  tastes  good  and  that  is  a  good  thing  for  mankind. 
As  a  representative  of  the  company  said,  they  wanted  to 
create  a  demand  for  a  food  product  that  would  become  a 
staple. 

The  next  proposition  was  that  in  order  for  a  food  to 
become  a  staple,  it  must  become  a  staple  in  the  minds 
of  the  people  who  sell  it  to  the  consumer.  In  order  for 
it  to  do  that,  it  must  return  to  the  handlers,  whether 
wholesale  or  retail,  a  consistent  and  permanent  profit  on 
each  case  and  on  each  package.  Therefore,  it  was  neces- 
sary to  establish  a  price  and  throw  around  that  price  all 
the  safeguards  of  a  one-price  system,  for  it  was  found  by 
previous  experience,  that  this  lack  of  a  one-price  system 
had  been  one  of  the  serious  drawbacks  to  success  in  the 
cereal  business. 

The  third  proposition  was  that  they  must  decide 
whether  they  would  develop  territorially  or  nationally. 
They  preferred  national  development,  because  they  had 
enough   money   to   organize   advertising  and   sales    forces 


344 


THINKER,     DOER    &    COMPANY 


nationally;  and  they  found  that  it  would  cost  less  in  the 
end  to  do  it  that  way. 

The  Staff  and  the  Selling  Organization 

The  staff  organization  is  sometimes  used  to  protect 
the  selling  organization  against  personal  failure.  The 
Packard  Motor  Car  Company,  of  Detroit,  includes  in  its 
contract  with  its  representatives  a  provision  that  auditors 
representing  the  company  shall  at  any  time  have  access 
to  the  agent's  accounts  for  the  purpose  of  familiarizing 
themselves  with  the  exact  status  of  the  agent's  business — 
what  it  is  costing  him  to  do  business,  where  he  is  making 
a  profit,  and  how  he  is  making  it.  This  policy  had  led 
to  the  maintenance  of  price  and  to  the  creating  of  a  higher 
grade  of  service  efiticiency  among  the  selling  agencies  of 
the  organization.  Sometimes  it  has  been  found  necessary 
for  the  officers  of  the  company  to  warn  an  agent  or  a 
dealer  that  some  department  of  his  agency  was  costing 
too  much,  or  that  another  department  of  his  agency  was 
not  costing  enough  to  insure  efficiency,  or  that  another 
department  wasn't  being  handled  properly,  or  that  there 
was  too  much  spent  for  this  or  that  or  the  other  thing.  The 
policy  has  paid. 

It  would  pay  the  great  food  product  manufacturers  of 
this  country,  such  as  Post,  Kellogg,  Fairbanks,  Armour, 
and  Swift,  to  subsidize  a  staff  of  men  who  would  do  noth- 
ing more  than  organize  a  campaign  among  the  retailers 
of  this  country  and  teach  them  how  to  make  money  by 
keeping  store. 

An  Advertising  Failure 

One  of  the  most  stupid  manifestations  of  lack  of  thinking 
was  exhibited  in  the  splurge  of  advertising  to  impress  the  re- 
tailer, that  came  out  in  1909-10.    Large  space  was  purchased 


THE    LINE    AND     STAFF    SYSTEM 


345 


in  the  Saturday  Evening  Post,  Collier's,  the  Ladies'  Home 
Journal,  and  other  publications  of  great  advertising  prestige. 
These  ads  were  reproduced  in  beautifully  colored  circulars, 
and  with  a  letter  or  folder  were  then  distributed  to  retailers 
in  selected  territories.  The  retailer  was  urged  to  stock  up 
with  the  goods  "for  the  advertising  was  going  to  create  an 
enormous  demand."  But  it  didn't,  because  advertising  alone 
seldom  moves  goods  from  a  dealer's  shelves.  The  dealer 
must  do  the  moving;  and  if  the  dealer  is  not  properly  in- 
structed how  to  move  them,  the  goods  stay,  to  the  disgust 
of  all  concerned. 

Retailers  everywhere  are  asking  how  they  can  know 
more  about  their  businesses.  Every  retailer  is  today  ask- 
ing himself,  "What  am  I  making?  How  much  of  the 
money  in  that  drawer  belongs  to  me?  Have  I  got  all  of 
the  money  for  all  of  the  goods  that  I  have  on  my  shelves; 
or  what  proportion  of  the  goods  I  have  put  on  my  shelves, 
have  I  never  received  any  money  for?"  There  are  mighty 
few  men,  rated  at  $10,000  or  less,  who  can  tell;  and  they 
admit  it. 

The  book*  published  by  a  great  mail  order  wholesale 
house  in  the  West,  which  has  its  staff  of  expert  buyers 
and  sellers  at  the  command  of  their  customers,  shows  the 
right  tendency. 

If  the  great  wholesalers  and  manufacturers  could  get 
together  and  equip  a  staff  which  could  help  their  retailers 
make  more  money  without  raising  prices,  they  would  in- 
duce a  livelier  cooperation  on  the  part  of  their  distributing 
agencies;  they  would  insure  greater  efficiency  and  sell 
more  goods. 

Scientific  Management  in  the  Navy 

Former  Secretary  of  the  Navy  Mayer  said  that  it  was 


•  "Successful  Retailing,"  Butler  Brothers,  Chicago,  Ul. 


346  THINKER,     DOER    &    COMPANY 

scientific  management  that  increased  the  percentage  of 
hits  from  3  1-2  made  at  the  battle  of  Santiago  to  33  1-3 
made  today,  although  the  range  has  been  increased  from 
3000  to  10,000  yards,  and  the  rate  of  fire  increased  from 
one  shot  in  five  minutes  to  two  shots  in  one  minute. 
Naval  efficiency  has  increased  1300  per  cent  since  the 
battle  of  Santiago. 

This  increase  has  been  due  to: 

I — Better  appliances. 

2 — Systematic  study  of  men  and  their  qualifications, 
and  recognition  of  the  importance  of  putting  men,  after 
careful  test,  in  the  places  where  they  can  do  the  work  as  it 
should  be  done. 

These  two  things,  however,  have  come  as  a  result  of 
expert  training,  scientific  observation,  and  the  stan- 
dardization of  the  work  by  stafif  experts. 

As  usual,  it  did  not  "happen." 

Scientific  Retailing 

Manufacturers  and  wholesalers,  selling  through  the 
retailers,  must  get  together  and  plan  to  keep  their  people 
in  business.  The  loss  of  retailing  units  is  tremendous; 
they  go  out  of  business  because  of  their  inefficiency;  and 
manufacturers  and  wholesalers  have  to  pay  the  price  of 
this  death  rate. 

It  does  not  pay  to  make  new  accounts.  They  have 
been  encouraging  the  growth  of  this  difficulty  by  adver- 
tising to  bring  the  retailer  more  business.  The  retailer 
could  not  make  money  because  he  was  frequently  losing 
money  on  every  sale,  and  the  more  business  he  had  the 
poorer  he  was. 

The  retailer's  accounting  system  is  negligible.  He 
looks  upon  it  as  a  useless  extravagance;  he  makes  money 
outside  his  business,  or  goes  broke;  he  blames  it  on  low 


THE    LINE    AND     STAFF    SYSTEM  347 

prices  or  bad  credits;  he  needs  to  be  taught  how  to  keep 
store. 

The  manufacturers  and  wholesalers  will  have  to  or- 
ganize to  carry  on  a  propaganda  in  favor  of  scientific  re- 
tailing, just  as  the  government  has  been  carrying  on  the 
propaganda  for  scientific  farming.    It  is  equally  important. 

American  business  men  of  large  vision  have  thus  local- 
ized the  weakness  of  the  old-line  type  of  organization. 
"We  want  to  do  things,"  they  say,  "but  let  us  do  them 
right  and  quickly."  The  addition  of  the  stafif  of  trained 
specialists  to  the  line  of  workers,  is  the  answer  of  the 
efificiency  engineer  to  the  demand  that  the  business  shall 
plan  for  the  tomorrows  of  the  future. 

Under  such  a  method  the  humblest  worker  in  the 
great  house  of  Thinker,  Doer  &  Company  will  have  at  his 
command,  for  the  settlement  of  his  dollar  dif^culty,  the 
brains  of  a  fifty-thousand-dollar  staff,  and  will  make  more 
money  in  the  bargain.  The  only  one  who  will  smile  at  this 
Utopia  is  the  man  whose  forefather  smiled  at  Bell  and 
Edison,  and  who,  in  the  '70's  smiled  at  von  Moltke  when 
he  reorganized  the  German  army,  and  who  a  few  years 
ago  was  quite  willing  to  prophesy  that  Russia  would  whip 
Japan. 

Let  him  smile. 


PART  IX 


One  Foot  Inside  the  Door 

All  I  ask  of  Providence  is  a  foot  inside  the  door. 

— Brazenhead  the  Great. 


CHAPTER    XXVIII 
INDIVIDUALITY 

The  big  work  of  man  is  neither  masonry,  manufactur- 
ing, nor  merchandising.  It  is  life  itself.  Incidentally,  there 
are  bricks  to  be  laid,  wood  to  be  shaped,  and  goods  to  be 
sold;  but  these  are  only  jots  and  tittles  in  the  scheme  of 
individual  existence.  The  main  thing  is  life  itself.  Life 
well  wrought  is  a  fabric  which  commands  the  gaze  of  all 
discerning  eyes,  the  responsiveness  of  all  neighboring  hearts. 
Life  bungled  is  a  producer  of  ceaseless  shame. 

— Richard  Wightman. 

The  Human  Element 

One  day  I  heard  Melville  W.  Mix*  say: 

"I  wouldn't  give  a  snap  of  my  finger  for  the  business 
or  organization  that  does  not  contain  some  sentiment, 
some  vestige  of  a  human  soul.  No  disposition  of  any  vital 
problem  is  final  and  satisfactory  unless  it  contains  some  con- 
sideration of  the  human  element;  and  as  for  myself,  I  prefer 
not  to  deal  with  any  conditions  or  forms  of  organizations 
— social,  political,  or  commercial — in  which  the  dominating 
influence  is  actuated  by  an  arterial  circulation  of  ice  water." 

Thus  this  farsighted  manager  of  men  accentuated  the 
human  element  in  business.  "He  doesn't  get  along  with 
men,"  has  been  one  of  the  standing  objections  to  certain 
types  of  men. 

"The  men  swear  by  him,"  was  given  me  as  a  reason 
why  a  certain  sales  manager  was  unusually  successful. 

So  in  any  study  of  the  new  business  and  its  efficiency, 
we  soon  come  to  the  art  of  handling  men.     We  leave  the 


President   Dodge   Manufacturing  Company,  Mishawaka,   Indiana. 


352 


ONE    FOOT    INSIDE    THE    DOOR 


science  of  the  day's  work  to  work  itself  out  as  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  law  inevitably  does.  As  we  turn  the  light 
inward  on  man  to  find  of  what  he  is  made,  so  we  enter 
the  inner  sanctum  of  the  business  to  find  out  its  individ- 
uality. 

It  is  not  enough  to  talk  of  him  as  a  man;  what  is  the 
individuality  of  the  man? 

What  is  his  courage,  his  mental,  moral,  and  physical 
courage? 

What  is  his  initiative,  energy,  judgment,  his  philosophy? 

How  does  he  measure  up  with  the  new  ideas?  What 
would  he  sacrifice  to  be  right?  What  would  he  endure 
for  the  thing  he  holds  to  be  right?  What  is  the  test  of 
his  metal?  This  human  metal  becomes  the  most  impor- 
tant material  in  the  whole  business. 

You  may  have  capital  and  concessions,  tariffs  and 
patent  monopolies,  stock  on  your  shelves,  experience,  and 
science,  but  if  you  forget  to  humanize  them  all  you  fail 
just  as  surely  as  God  made  man  the  greatest  of  his 
wonders. 

Self  and  Self  Sacrifice 

That  courage  which  makes  man  dominant  is  bound 
up  in  his  individuality,  which  is  that  combination  of 
characteristic  qualities,  natural  and  acquired,  of  mind,  heart, 
and  body,  which  makes  one  man  different  from  another. 
Any  attempt  to  make  a  man  efficient  in  life  or  work,  must 
take  into  consideration  the  qualities  which  together  he 
calls  self.  Christian  dogma  teaches  us  that  the  greatest 
love  is  shown  when  we  merge  ourselves  in  the  individu- 
ality of  the  beloved  one,  because  Christianity  recognizes 
that  the  highest  loyalty  is  the  surrender  of  self  to  the  will 
of  the  Master.  The  final  and  complete  sacrifice  was, 
"Fatlicr,  into  l1iy  hnnds  T  commend  my  spirit,"  the  words 


INDIVIDUALITY  353 

of  the  Christ  on  Golgotha.  It  was  the  consummate  sur- 
render of  self. 

So,  from  the  beginning,  man  has  struggled  against 
law,  convention,  physical  force,  and  in  his  ignorance  even 
against  science  and  truth,  to  put  the  signet  of  self  on  the 
work  of  his  hand  and  the  thought  of  his  mind.  This  has 
been  the  dominant  impulse  of  the  human  animal,  to  realize 
to  the  uttermost  his  life's  completeness — the  fulfilment 
of  his  self's  ability  to  do.  Economists  have  given  their 
best  thought  to  the  problem  of  so  moulding  this  self  in 
the  young  and  so  meeting  its  social  liabilities  and  self- 
interests  in  maturity,  as  to  gain  the  greatest  efficiency  for 
humanity.  We  constantly  hear  the  criticism,  that  "a  man 
failed  because  his  heart  wasn't  in  it."  In  fact,  he  failed  be- 
cause his  self  was  not  back  of  his  endeavor. 

Men  do  not  work  for  others  as  they  work  for  them- 
selves; they  work  much  less  for  others.  We  must  enlist 
self -intertst  if  we  would  raise  efficiency. 

The  good  man  sacrifices  the  comfort,  ease,  and  happi- 
ness of  himself  and  his  family  to  the  vision  of  his  soul; 
and  we  call  it  unselfishness. 

The  bad  man  drinks  up  the  sustenance  of  wife  and 
children,  sacrificing  his  better  instincts  of  love  and  gener- 
ous affection  to  his  lusts,  and  we  call  it  selfishness.  Avar- 
ice dominates  a  third,  and  his  world  suffers  extortion  and 
usury  while  he  exacts  his  pound  of  flesh  and  the  world 
calls  him  selfish. 

The  Pilgrim  fathers,  "first  fell  on  their  knees — then 
on  the  aborigines,"  and  in  the  name  of  God  and  their  re- 
ligious liberty,  hunted  their  radical  brethren  and  sisters  to 
acceptance  of  the  official  faith. 

They  stifled  humanity  and  love  and  charity  and  con- 
science. The  good  are  ungenerous  and  unkind  as  are  the 
bad ;  so  Heaven  as  well  as  Hell  demands  a  sacrifice. 


354 


ONE    FOOT    INSIDE    THE    DOOR 


The  Liberty  of  Self 

With  man,  as  with  groups  and  societies  in  general,  the 
revolt  of  the  slave  against  the  master  becomes  the  revolt 
of  peoples  against  tyrants;  of  the  worker  against  the  un- 
just employer;  becomes  the  war  of  unionism  against  capi- 
tal. In  particular,  as  in  general,  every  revolution  has 
found  its  principal  energy  in  the  fact  that  one  set  of  men 
denied  to  another,  the  right  of  liberty  of  self.  Our  politi- 
cal insurgency  has  found  its  motive  in  the  consciousness 
that  self  was  being  sacrificed  to  the  selfishness  of  a 
stronger  economic  group. 

As  man  energizes  his  work  with  the  consciousness  of 
self,  he  regards  individuality  in  leaders  as  the  primary  evi- 
dence of  power,  and  man  worships  power.  He  follows 
Cromwell  in  the  war  against  the  rotten  monarchy  of 
Charles;  he  follows  Washington  from  the  steps  of  the 
throne  of  the  imbecile  George;  he  supports  Lincoln  in 
the  black  chaos  of  rebellion;  and  he  gives  to  Mohammed, 
Confucius,  and  Christ,  the  fealty  which  created  new  creeds. 
The  leadership  of  all  men  from  Alexander  or  Caesar  to 
Napoleon  or  Roosevelt  has  been  founded  upon  the  appeal 
of  their  individual  selves  to  the  individual  selves  of  their 
followers. 

The  Higher  Selfishness 

Yet  small  minds  have  denounced  this  selfishness  as  a 
crime.  It  is  a  crime,  as  smallness  is  a  crime,  as  pity  for 
little  things  becomes  mawkish  sentimentality,  when  it  is 
of  little  consequence.  There  is  a  higher  selfishness  which 
found  its  expression  in  the  life  of  Christ,  the  being  selfish 
with  respect  to  the  integrity  of  the  higher  motives  of  His 
life,  selfish  in  regarding  his  destiny  above  the  physical 
comfort  of  the  body  or  the  transient  good  of  his  disciples. 
It  was  that  selfishness  of  high  ideals  which  may  bring 


INDIVIDUALITY 


355 


misery  to  the  body,  but  which  brings  unceasing  joy  to 
the  mind  and  soul. 

But  many  stories  of  self-forgetfulness  must  be  taken  with 
a  grain  of  salt. 

The  fact  that  Gladstone  refused  a  title;  that  Savon- 
arola died  a  martyr  to  the  cause  of  truth;  that  Luther 
refused  churchly  preferment  in  order  to  found  a  wider 
world — no  doubt  had  exactly  the  same  psychological  mo- 
tive as  Alexander's  idea  of  conquering  the  world  or  Na- 
poleon's purpose  in  tearing  Europe  to  pieces.  These  men 
lived  according  to  their  lights,  working  out  the  mystic 
problem  of  their  individuality,  and  doing  with  all  their 
might  the  thing  that  they  could  do  best  and  leaving  to 
posterity  the  vexed  problem  of  fixing  the  value  of  their 
deeds. 

We  find  much  evil  in  the  result  of  Gladstone's  agita- 
tion of  Home  Rule,  just  as  we  find  civic  and  political  good 
in  the  results  of  Napoleon's  life;  for  did  it  not  give  a 
solidarity  to  the  German  nation,  and  did  it  not  end  the 
domination  of  Austria  in  European  affairs?  Weighed  in 
the  scales  of  life,  the  consequences  of  the  lives  of  all  these 
great  men  are  much  alike.  All  brought  happiness  and  un- 
happiness  because  all  changed  the  face  of  things,  and  the 
trend  of  visions.  The  scientist,  Herschel,  like  Agassiz, 
"had  no  time  to  make  money,"  but  what  he  did  brought 
him  more  satisfaction  than  money  could  bring.  What 
praise  should  be  given  Herschel  for  holding  that  to  get 
what  he  wanted  was  better  than  to  get  what  somebody 
else  thought  he  should  want! 

A  Standard  of  Right 

Men  are  not  taught  how  to  determine  what  they 
should  want  in  order  to  develop  their  efficient  individual- 
ity, nor  shown  how  to  live  to  the  uttermost  the  best  that 


356  ONE    FOOT    INSIDE    THE    DOOR 

IS  in  them;  but  are  given  ideals  which  defeat  themselves, 
and  ends  which  carry  no  real  rewards  for  body,  mind,  or 
soul. 

This  fact  must  be  obvious,  for  the  majority  would 
nearly  always  be  wrong  if  left  to  itself.  The  majority  is 
nothing  but  numbers;  and  without  the  abihty  to  weigh 
evidence  and  distinguish  facts,  it  is  a  dangerous  mass  of 
ignorance.  The  French  Revolution  is  an  example.  Look 
at  the  problem  of  right  and  wrong;  view  it  not  from  the 
standpoint  of  moral  intentions,  but  from  that  of  practical 
consequences.  For  two  thousand  years  we  have  been 
judging  men's  acts  by  intentions.  We  are  Hkely  to  con- 
sider an  act  right  or  wrong,  as  it  was  intended  right  or 
or  wrong.  We  hear  this  plea  every  day  in  our  business: 
"I  didn't  intend  to  do  that,"  as  an  excuse  for  having 
done  it.  Isn't  "a  man  of  good  intentions"  very  often  a 
civil  way  of  describing  a  fool? 

Naturally  we  judge  acts  and  men  as  we  must  judge 
truth  itself,  by  consequences,  and  they  are  right  or  wrong, 
good  or  bad,  beneficial  or  hurtful,  according  to  the  conse- 
quences they  produce. 

Thus  we  get  at  the  fact  that  as  a  man  thinks,  so  he 
is  and  so  he  acts.  We  must  judge  him  by  the  conse- 
quences of  his  living,  and  we  must  get  at  his  value  by  the 
appraisal  of  those  consequences  in  relation  to  the  good 
of  business  and  society  and  life  generally. 

Individuality  as  an  Efficiency  Principle 

This  brings  us  back  in  the  study  of  individuality  as  an 
ef^ciency  principle,  to  consider  it  as  the  motive  power 
which  dominates  the  acts  of  men,  societies,  nations,  and 
the  world  at  large;  and  the  consequences  of  the  applica- 
tion of  this  power  will  determine  how  much  it  is  worth. 

We  have  individuals  who  are  big,  powerful,  and  ener- 


INDIVIDUALITY 


357 


g-etic;  from  whom  consequences  of  vital  importance  to 
mankind  flow  as  a  steady  stream  until  their  individualities 
dominate  the  times  in  which  they  live  and  master  the  men 
with  whom  they  associate,  just  as  the  engines  dominate 
the  progress  of  the  ship.  The  French  Revolution  estab- 
lished the  sacredness  of  self  as  an  economic  fact,  and 
through  the  influence  of  Paine  and  Jefferson  our  Consti- 
tution further  reiterated  it.  Every  man  has  an  individuality, 
and  "every  business  is  but  the  lengthened  shadow  of  a 
man"  are  terms  with  which  we  have  conjured  for  genera- 
tions. They  mean  something  to  you  and  to  me,  but  what 
do  they  really  mean?  We  must  find  out  in  this  age  of 
machinery  what  individuality  is  worth  in  the  world's 
market.  We  must  get  down  to  its  units,  break  it  up  and 
find  out  what  it  is  made  of,  and  from  this  knowledge  try 
to  rebuild  an  individuality  that  shall  develop  a  higher  per- 
centage of  efficiency. 

The  Trinity  of  Self 

Any  gospel  of  efficiency  that  fails  to  reckon  with  the 
man's  self,  which  makes  his  manner  of  doing  a  thing  dif- 
ferent from  the  manner  in  which  anybody  else  does  it. 
which  makes  him  stand  by  himself,  would  be  leaving  the 
electricity  out  of  the  motor.  Has  anyone  ever  told  you 
what  electricity  is?  Then  don't  ask  what  the  self  is.  We 
can  only  tell  you  how  it  manifests  itself.  Man's  life  is  the 
expression  of  three  things:  first,  his  soul;  second,  his  mind; 
third,  his  body.    These  things  are  his  self. 

He  expresses  it  in  three  great  divisions  of  life  accom- 
plishment :  Religion,  Science,  and  Art,  which,  as  the  poet 
well  said :  "are  shown  in  loving,  learning,  and  doing  with 
symmetry,  wisdom,  and  joy."  No  man  can  escape  these 
triune  limitations.  Within  these  three  divisions,  all  laws 
of  life  fall,  all  facts,  all  knowledge,  all  dreams  and  visions 


358 


ONE    FOOT     INSIDE    THE    DOOR 


come  within  their  boundaries.  Since  all  nature  is  in  bal- 
ance, what  a  man  lacks  in  soul,  he  makes  up  in  body  or 
mind  to  form  the  unity  of  his  self.  If  his  mind  is  devel- 
oped to  a  sufficient  extent  to  analyze  that  self,  he  will 
endeavor  to  supplement  his  natural  forces  with  acquired 
abilities  in  the  three  fields. 

What  Makes  the  Master 

Without  running  to  definitions  or  into  the  subtleties 
of  psychology  or  philosophy,  I  shall  appeal  to  the  com- 
mon experience  of  the  reader,  who  will  admit  that  he  is 
conscious  of  this  trinity  of  forces  acting  in  his  life.  He 
is  conscious  that  he  is  different  from  Jones  and  Smith, 
but  in  what  concrete  ways  is  he  different?  What  is  the 
inevitable  consequence  of  that  difference  to  himself  and 
to  others?  Are  those  consequences  beneficial  or  disas- 
trous? Has  he  power  to  make  the  former  better,  or  to 
nullify  the  effects  of  the  latter? 

One  man  is  linked  to  the  earth  by  bodily  qualities 
which  make  him  busy  but  impotent.  Another  with  a  soul 
dominating  all  else,  soars  into  mysticism  and  becomes 
fog-bound  in  the  contemplation  of  mysteries  that  never 
were  on  land  or  sea.  A  third  with  a  mind  dominating 
both  body  and  soul,  becomes  a  thinking  machine  which 
stores  up  energy  in  a  reservoir  that  is  never  tapped  for 
practical  good,  as  do  the  solvers  of  perpetual  motion  prob- 
lems. After  all,  it  is  the  power  to  use  efficiently  the  quali- 
ties of  body,  mind,  and  soul,  as  needed,  which  denotes  the 
master. 

The  Domination  of  the  Master 

I  was  told  the  other  day  of  a  little  concern  manufac- 
turing lawn-mowers  in  the  small  town  of  Clarinda,  Iowa, 
whose  board  of  directors  is  made  up  of  a  number  of  well- 


INDIVIDUALITY  359 

to-do  farmers  of  that  vicinity.  When  these  farmers  are 
not  running  the  lawn-mower  business,  they  are  experi- 
menting with  farm  machinery,  plant  foods,  or  discussing 
the  best  way  to  protect  the  farmer  from  the  encroach- 
ment of  the  wicked  trusts;  occasionally,  they  furnish  each 
other  with  that  political  philosophy  which  is  expressed  in 
the  platform  of  Senator  Cummins, 

There  is  a  man  named  Bill  Brown  who  is  very  highly 
esteemed  in  that  pastoral  community.  Quite  frequently 
he  meets  with  the  lawn-mower  men  and  works  for  the 
enhancement  of  the  company  profits.  Brown  is  a  char- 
acter; he  dominates  the  town  of  Clarinda;  he  is  the  fine 
flower  of  its  citizenship,  and  it  is  the  ambition  of  most 
citizens  to  be  known  as  his  friend.  They  listen  to  him, 
and  they  wait  on  his  word.  In  the  East,  Bill  Brown  was 
known  as  W.  C.  Brown,  President  of  the  New  York  Cen- 
tral. It  is  a  far  cry  from  Clarinda  to  New  York,  and  Bill 
Brown  of  Clarinda  became  W.  C.  Brown  by  the  time 
Forty-second  Street  was  reached.  In  fact  it  was  the  same 
Brown,  but  people  knew  him  differently  in  New  York,  saw 
him  differently,  because  they  were  different.  Brown  played 
the  game  according  to  the  rules,  and  when  in  Rome,  did 
as  the  Romans  did. 

If  you  had  gotten  to  the  heart  of  the  work  of  Presi- 
dent W.  C.  Brown  of  the  New  York  Central,  you  would 
have  found  him  to  be  Bill  Brown  in  the  days  that  have 
made  the  New  York  Central  corporation  more  human 
than  it  has  ever  been  since  the  first  Vanderbilt  died.  In 
short.  Brown's  self  is  the  same  in  New  York  as  it  is  in 
Clarinda.  It  is  producing  the  same  efficiency  in  New 
York  as  it  does  in  Clarinda,  because  Brown's  self  is  right. 
It  is  in  tune  with  the  larger  law,  which  is  the  same  in  New 
York  as  it  is  in  Iowa.  We  judge  it  entirely  by  results  or 
consequences;  it  dominates  in  both  places. 


CHAPTER    XXIX 

THE  EFFICIENT  INDIVIDUALITY 

No  power  on  earth  can  keep  the  first  class  man  down 
or  the  fourth  class  man  up. — Boetcker. 

The  efficient  man  is  the  man  who   thinks  for  himself, 
and  is  capable  of  thinking  hard  and  long. 

— Charles  W.  Eliot. 

Squaring  the  Round  Peg 

I  heard  a  speaker  illustrate  the  rule  of  balance  in  na- 
ture. He  likened  the  man  who  is  all  mind,  with  his  broad- 
topped  head  and  pointed  chin,  to  a  pyramid  standing  on 
its  apex;  who  was  long  on  thinking  and  short  on  doing. 
The  man  who  is  a  great  doer,  with  a  pugilistic  jaw  and 
narrow-topped  head,  is  short  on  mind,  and  likened  to  a 
pyramid  on  its  base — close  to  the  ground,  hard  to  knock 
off  his  feet,  plenty  of  vitality,  but  likely  to  be  short  on 
intellect.  The  business  man  must  square  up  the  forces 
of  management  by  supplementing  what  he  has  with  what 
he  needs.  The  mind  needs  the  body  and  the  body  needs 
the  mind — and  both  need  the  soul  because  the  soul  gives 
energy  to  both. 

All  men  are  not  of  a  type.  They  are  generally  mixed. 
"Yes,  he  is  a  mixed  type,"  said  the  president  of  a  company 
to  his  directors,  in  discussing  the  general  manager.  "As 
nearly  as  I  can  figure  he  is  a  rule-of-thumb  sales  manager, 
a  systematic  accountant,  and  a  scientific  factory  manager. 
What  we  want  is  a  scientific  general  manager." 

John  R.  Walsh,  with  a  mind  closed  against  all  experi- 
ence but  his  own,  could  not  escape  this  law  of  compensa- 

360 


THE    EFFICIENT    INDIVIDUALITY  361 

tion  even  with  his  dominant  will,  and  he  went  to  smash. 
Charles  T.  Yerkes,  the  Chicago  and  London  transporta- 
tion king,  who  went  through  prison  to  find  millions  play- 
ing the  game  of  life  with  loaded  dice,  his  soul  dominated 
by  a  cynical  materiaHsm,  struggled  with  all  the  force  of 
a  dominating  mind  and  a  magnificent  body,  to  rear  a 
golden  monument  to  material  things.  Men  will  long  re- 
member that  Yerkes'  self  lived  and  did  things,  but  in  less 
than  half  a  decade  after  his  mind  and  body  had  vanished 
from  earth  the  work  of  his  hands  has  "crumbled  into  the 
voiceless  silence  of  the  dreamless  dust."  And  Yerkes  is 
today  but  a  name  for  things  which  no  man  would  care 
to  emulate.  Is  there  any  more  tragic  and  futile  monu- 
ment than  that  which  immortalizes  a  man  as  a  horrible 
example?  Yet  Yerkes'  work  in  its  material  aspect  was 
remarkable. 

Wherein  the  Value  of  Individuality 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  to  most  of  us,  individuality  means 
mere  difference,  and  in  our  striving  for  individuality  we 
have  tried  for  difference  with  the  result  that  difference  is 
the  only  thing  we  have  attained.  When  we  reahze  that 
the  value  of  individuality  lies  in  the  consequences  of  its 
existence,  and  that  the  value  of  those  consequences  is 
determined  by  the  standards  of  efificient  life,  individuality 
becomes  more  important  to  the  world  and  to  us.  The 
complete  individuality  always  dares  to  do  and  to  think  and 
to  be  itself.  Its  mind  has  the  knowledge  of  the  higher 
law;  its  soul  has  the  steadfast  vision;  and  the  body  re- 
sponds to  its  masters  to  the  limit  of  skill  and  endurance. 
Environment  and  heredity  have  their  place  in  the  mould- 
ing of  it.  Given  a  mind  that  can  understand  that  the 
self  may  be  moulded,  and  we  shall  have  but  little  trouble 
in  setting  the  standards  for  tomorrow's  success. 


362  ONE    FOOT    INSIDE    THE    DOOR 

Let  us  understand  that  a  man  may  be  different  and 
be  a  fool  in  the  bargain.  We  see  this  in  the  adolescent 
Berry  Wall,  the  "glass  of  fashion"  and  the  "Napoleon" 
of  the  insane  asylum.  The  "different"  man  may  play  a 
piano  like  Blind  Tom,  yet  be  a  mental  bankrupt.  Mere 
difference,  therefore,  does  not  argue  strength  either  of 
body,  mind  or  soul.  It  is  important  to  know  if  the  dif- 
ference is  worth  while,  and  it  is  the  "What's  the  use?" 
test  that  must  be  applied  to  differences  to  determine  their 
value. 

The  Measure  of  Self 

Do  you  think  carefully  before  you  act?  The  only  way 
to  get  the  value  of  an  act  is  from  the  consequences  of  it 
and  they  would  have  been  more  if  the  act  had  been  dif- 
ferent. Are  the  consequences  of  our  ideals  seen  through 
our  thoughts  and  work,  of  the  kind  that  make  for  a  valu- 
able life?  Do  they  make  for  a  business  that  will  live  long 
and  prosper,  judged  by  the  standards  of  those  businesses 
that  have  lived  long  and  prospered?  Why?  Is  your  body 
in  health?  Do  you  think  to  the  point?  How  do  you 
know?  Do  you  learn  anything  from  a  failure  or  a  suc- 
cess? What  have  you  learned,  and  how  did  you  learn  it? 
What  high  motives  prompt  you,  and  what  are  the  conse- 
quences of  those  promptings?  The  way  you  answer  these 
questions  will  indicate  your  individuality;  is  it  worth  while, 
or  does  it  need  changing?     Does  it  need  strengthening? 

Religion,  science,  art — the  three  great  divisions  of 
man's  activities  have  achieved  through  the  ages  some 
standards  of  valuation  alongside  of  which  the  consequences 
of  each  man's  acts  must  be  measured. 

The  Two  Testa 

Every  man  must  subject  himself  to  two  tests — the 
subjective  test,  which  is  the  man's  estimate  of  the  value 


THE    EFFICIENT    INDIVIDUALITY  363 

of  his  self;  and  the  objective  test,  which  is  the  value  of 
his  ability  in  the  eyes  of  the  world. 

The  danger  of  the  first  test  is  that  he  will  not  be  just 
with  himself;  of  the  second,  that  he  will  follow  the  crowd, 
and  not  the  principle  of  "Who  Says  So?"  In  the  French 
Revolution  the  mob  soaked  France  with  the  blood  of  the 
aristocrats,  yet  the  minority  rules  France  today,  as  in 
fact  it  always  will.  It  is  the  old  story  of  the  power  of 
mind;  wherever  matter  dominates,  it  destroys,  but  mind 
and  soul  in  the  long  run  survive,  dominate,  and  conserve. 

The  Ambition  of  Self 

Man's  struggle  is  constantly  to  strengthen  his  self; 
his  mind  reaches  out  bHndly  to  know  that  self.  The  city 
man  who  harbors  the  deathless  desire  for  three  acres  in 
the  country,  which  he  fondly  hopes  will  spell  liberty  from 
the  huckster  with  the  false  bottom  in  his  berry  box,  from 
the  twelve-ounces-in-a-pound  meat  dealer,  desires  to 
plant  and  reap  with  his  own  hands,  because  it  is  a  recru- 
descence of  natural  law.  He  may  want  a  fireside,  in  whose 
quiet  he  may  shut  out  the  irritating  world,  and  have  some 
hours  of  his  day  when  he  and  self  may  come  together.  An- 
other seeks  the  mastery  of  men;  to  sit  in  high  places,  to 
look  down  on  the  world;  to  mould  its  inexplicable  pur- 
poses, and  to  entice  men  to  follow  his  leadership  into  un- 
known vistas  that  in  some  quiet  place  inaccessible  and 
a-far,  where  Power  sits  alone,  he  too  may  see  his  self  and 
know. 

The  Faith  of  Works 

Art,  as  the  expression  of  the  mind's  ideal  and  the 
soul's  desire,  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  cosmic 
urge  to  self-reproduction.  Nature  cries  to  us  to  do  some- 
thing,   and    we   answer   the   cry   by   finding   radium,    by 


364  ^NE    FOOT    INSIDE    THE    DOOR 

painting  a  picture,  or  by  putting  God  in  the  day's  work. 
Faith  in  the  most  useful  lives  leads  to  work  also.  We  re- 
volt at  the  fakir  of  India,  reclining  on  his  bed  of  nails,  or 
of  Simon  Stylites,  sitting  on  his  pillar,  watched  by  the 
curious  and  the  vultures,  because  we  realize  the  futiHty  of 
their  mysticism  and  because  we  feel  that  such  intensity 
of  faith  should  do  more  for  mankind,  and  that  their  ex- 
hibition is  but  glorified  selfishness — the  giving  of  a  stone 
for  bread  to  the  faith-hungry  souls  of  men. 

Efficiency  and  the  Individual 

Efficiency  makes  for  the  harmonious  development  of 
body,  mind,  and  soul.  It  makes,  therefore,  for  the  great- 
est eflficiency  of  the  individual.  It  makes  for  balance  and 
poise,  in  order  that  the  body,  mind,  and  soul  may  develop 
in  harmony  with  one  another,  that  the  man  as  God  made 
him,  may  achieve  to  the  uttermost.  Science  has  declared 
that  in  order  to  obtain  the  prize  that  is  his  due,  man  must 
recognize  the  law  and  play  the  game  according  to  the 
rules.  He  must  have  health  and  endurance,  which  are 
body  traits;  he  must  maintain  his  interest,  enthusiasm, 
persistence,  will-power,  love  of  work,  faith,  and  courage, 
which  are  traits  of  his  soul;  he  must  have  thoroughness, 
promptness,  common  sense,  memory,  reliability,  foresight, 
judgment,  and  system,  which  spring  from  the  mind's  real- 
ization of  the  world's  way.^, 

The  weakness  of  man  lies  in  the  fact  that  he  sees 
crooked  and  he  thinks  as  he  sees.  No  man  is  safe  whose 
greatest  capacity  is  not  strengthened  by  an  all-around 
development.  No  man  can  be  a  great  thinker  who  leaves 
his  body  and  his  soul  out  of  the  problem  of  making  good. 
Science  without  faith  is  sterile  because  it  never  does  any- 
thing; and  a  faith  without  science  or  art  is  visionarv.  wast- 
ing time  in  dreams  of  idealities  of  no  value  to  the  world; 


THE    EFFICIENT     INDIVIDUALITY  365 

while  the  body,  without  science  or  an,  is  simply  a  hulk 
of  clay,  food  only  for  the  years  and  the  grave. 

Efficiency  Differences 

The  individual  must  therefore  find  in  what  concrete 
way  he  differs  from  others  and  how  he  is  efficient  through 
those  differences,  and  then  build  up  his  entire  being  to 
produce  the  greatest  harmony  and  the  greatest  power. 
Nature  places  certain  confines  on  each  of  our  attributes 
and  qualities  beyond  which  we  may  not  go.  None  of  us 
is  perfect.  Nature  did  not  intend  us  to  be,  for  she  re- 
serves perfection  for  eternity,  but  she  gives  us  all  a  chance 
within  the  rules  to  realize  ourselves  to  the  uttermost.  We 
fail  only  because  we  will  not  pay  the  price  in  the  discipline 
of  body,  mind  and  soul. 

If  you  had  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  to  invest  you 
would  put  each  prospective  investment  to  every  test  that 
your  experience  and  ingenuity  could  suggest.  You  would 
find  out  what  each  business  had  been,  what  it  is  and  what 
it  could  be;  you  would  hire  experts  to  give  you  advice  on 
its  present  condition  and  its  future  prospects.  Why? 
Just  to  be  sure  that  you  would  get  at  least  five  or  six 
thousand  dollars  a  year  income  from  it.  You  would  be 
careful  of  the  consequences  of  that  investment,  would  you 
not? 

What  would  you  think  of  a  man,  however,  who  spent 
all  the  time  making  these  investigations  when  he  did  not 
know  whether  he  had  ten  or  a  hundred  thousand  dollars 
to  invest? 

What  do  you  think  of  a  man.  therefore,  who  spends 
his  time  getting  a  five-thousand-dollar-a-year  job  without 
knowing  whether  he  has  a  hundred-thousand-dollar  aliilitv 
to  put  into  it.  and  vice  versa?  What  do  you  think  of  a 
man  who  has  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  worth  of  ac- 


366  ONE    FOOT    INSIDE    THE    DOOR 

counting  talent  to  invest,  and  is  satisfied  with  a  twenty- 
five  hundred  dollar  return  on  it? 

The  great  captains  of  character  and  individuality  have 
been  those  who  knew  themselves  and  others.  Search  the 
lives  of  Edison,  Hill,  Carnegie,  Wanamaker,  Morgan,  and 
you  hear  them  constantly  saying:  "I  knew  I  could  do 
this,"  ''The  facts  and  figures  in  the  case  prove  this."  "A 
careful  study  of  the  situation  and  the  men  who  dominated 
it,  lead  to  the  conclusion,"  etc. 

They  studied  individualities — differences — variations — 
to  see  how  near  to  the  rules  the  game  should  be  played, 
and  what  must  be  the  inevitable  consequences. 

The  Individuality  of  a  Business 

The  individuality  of  a  store  is  a  real  attractive  force. 
It  may  be  a  store  of  price,  in  which  case  the  service  is 
tested  by  the  kind  and  quality  of  goods  sold  at  a  price.  It 
may  be  modishness,  up-to-date-ness;  but  advertising,  sales- 
manship, efficient  merchandising,  low  price  and  high 
quality — even  all  of  these  things  together,  do  not  consti- 
tute its  individuality.  They  reflect  it.  Where  is  the  man 
who  is  the  central  .energy,  the  mind,  the  soul,  the  body 
of  it?  As  he  leans,  so  leans  the  smallest  employe;  as 
he  aspires  so  goes  the  business.  There  is  the  individu- 
ality of  the  store.  He  may  not  be  the  president  of  the 
company  or  even  the  owner  of  the  store,  but  he  is  the 
self  of  the  business.  The  true  policy  of  that  business  will 
be  the  credo  of  that  man's  soul. 

The  Curtis  Publishing  Company  has  the  largest  in- 
dependent sales  organization  in  the  world  devoted  to  dis- 
tributing publications.  Its  sales  department  issues  three 
publications,  "Vim,"  "Our  Boys,"  and  "Our  Teams."  In 
these  publications  the  attempt  is  made  to  create  and  foster 
among  the  many  hundreds  of  boys  and  men  who  dis- 


THE    EFFICIENT     INDIVIDUALITY  367 

tribute  the  "Saturday  Evening  Post,"  the  "Ladies'  Home 
Journal,"  and  "The  Country  Gentleman,"  a  spirit  of  loy- 
alty to  the  organization,  of  co-operation  with  each  other, 
and  a  sense  of  joint  individuality  commonly  called  esprit 
de  corps.  The  work  of  the  Curtis  Company  is  to  teach 
those  men  and  boys  to  become  more  efficient  salesmen. 
The  individuality  of  the  Curtis  Publishing  Company,  domi- 
nated by  the  characteristic  energy  and  qualities  of  Cyrus 
H.  K.  Curtis,  is  reflected  in  those  publications  with  the 
result  that  the  "Saturday  Evening  Post"  boys  are  a  cer- 
tain kind  of  boys.  They  are  all  different,  yet  they  have 
something  that  makes  them  all  the  same.  This  is  the 
individuality  of  an  organization,  playing  in,  through,  and 
by  the  individualities  of  the  units  composing  it. 

There  is  something  about  a  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
man  which  makes  him  different  from  other  railroad  men. 
There  is  something  about  a  National  Cash  Register  man 
which  makes  him  different  from  other  specialty  salesmen. 
There  is  something  about  a  John  Wanamaker  salesman  that 
makes  him  different  from  a  Macy  salesman,  and  yet  each 
one  of  these  has  an  individuality  which  makes  him  John 
Jones,  or  Tom  Smith. 

The  Menace  of  the  Egotist 

A  good  business  is  the  lengthened  shadow  of  a  good 
man.  Egotists  like  John  R.  Walsh  are  a  menace,  no  mat- 
ter how  much  they  may  give  in  alms  to  the  church  or  to 
the  poor;  they  are  a  danger  to  the  commercial  world,  no 
matter  how  many  great  schemes  their  fertile  brains  may 
elaborate.  Like  the  superman,  who  contemplates  only 
the  vision  of  his  soul,  the  wisdom  of  his  mind,  the  power 
of  his  body;  he  treats  the  world  as  if  it  belonged  to  him 
and  can  see  it  only  with  that  self  as  the  dominant  interest. 
As  one  man  said,  "The  difference  between  the  egotist  and 


368 


ONE    FOOT    INSIDE    THE    DOOR 


the  conceited  man  is  that  the  egotist  acts  as  though  the 
world  had  been  made  for  him,  and  the  conceited  man  as 
though  he  had  made  the  world."  So  an  egotist,  like  Na- 
poleon, is  mind  and  body  overdeveloped  with  a  stunted 
and  futile  soul. 

The  world  has  always  thwarted  the  egotist.  Jay  Gould 
and  Daniel  Drew,  who  sailed  under  the  black  flag  of  piracy 
on  the  commercial  seas  of  a  generation  ago,  were  men  of 
mind  and  body.  The  world  got  through  with  them  and 
now  remembers  them  only  for  the  evil  they  did — "which 
lives  after  them." 

Pick  out  the  men  who  have  made  great  fortunes.  To- 
day they  are  sources  of  weakness  rather  than  strength  to 
any  corporation  with  which  they  are  connected.  Why? 
Because,  right  or  wrong,  the  world  has  decided  them  to 
be  faithless  by  the  service  standards  of  the  hour.  Study 
the  insurance  investigations  and  its  train  of  wrecks  and 
you  will  realize  this. 

What  the  "Rank  Outsider"  Did 

Louis  Brandeis,  the  practical  theorist,  the  "rank  out- 
sider," who  fought  for  the  Atlantic  shippers  before  the 
Interstate  Commerce  Commission  and  taught  the  rule- 
of-thumb  railroad  men  of  the  United  States  that  there  is 
a  law  bigger,  deeper,  broader,  and  higher  than  the  way 
grandfather  did  things,  brought  a  new  gospel  to  the 
priests  of  the  Temple,  and  made  them  preach  it.  He  got 
cheaper  gas  for  Boston;  he  won  a  fight  for  the  shorter 
work  hours  for  women  before  the  Supreme  Court.  In 
the  Ballinger  case,  he  made  a  great  political  party  shud- 
der from  the  crown  of  its  head  to  the  soles  of  its  feet.  His 
is  an  individuality  which  works  along  scientific  lines  with 
all  the  energy  of  his  mind,  body,  soul  towards  realizing 
the  dav's  ideal  of  service. 


THE    EFFICIENT     INDIVIDUALITY  369 

What  Is  Freedom? 

"But,"  says  the  artist,  "these  rules  appal  me;  this 
gospel  of  efficiency  would  stifle  any  inspiration;  it  appears 
to  me  that  you  would  make  life  a  machine;  my  art  must 
be  free;  I  must  have  liberty." 

Liberty!  A  term  with  which  to  conjure!  What  is  it? 
Put  the  book  down  and  answer  it  frankly,  if  you  can.  Try 
to  put  an  objection-proof  definition  on  paper. 

Let  us  take  a  definition  from  the  French  philosopher, 
Henri  Bergson.* 

"We  are  free  when  our  acts  proceed  from  our  entire 
personality,  when  they  express  it,  when  they  exhibit  that 
indefinable  resemblance  to  it  which  we  find  occasionally 
between  the  artist  and  his  work." 

Think  it  over  carefully. 

Does  not  such  a  conception  of  liberty  make  all  men 
free? 

Efficiency  Well-Directed  Energy 

Here  is  the  chief  stumbling  block  in  the  intelligent 
consideration  of  any  plan  for  raising  efficiencies,  whether 
it  be  among  pianists  or  pin  makers.     It  is  mental. 

We  are  agreed  that  great  souls  furnish  the  energizing 
power  back  of  society,  that  the  world  moves  because  some 
men  move. 

That  the  great  human  factors  in  progress  follow  the 
rules  of  the  game  in  greater  or  less  part  is  not  understood, 
although  a  careful  analysis  of  their  method  would  soon 
demonstrate  it  to  any  open  mind.  Far  from  hampering 
a  man's  talent,  the  gospel  of  efficiency  gives  it  force  and 
power.  The  steam  directed  into  the  cylinder  against  the 
piston  of  the  engine  drives  it  with  efficiency  in  proportion 
as  the  machine  is  designed  true  to  mechanical  principles. 


*  "Essay  on  the  Immediate  Data,"  by  Henri   Bergson,  p.  172. 


370  ONE    FOOT    INSIDE    THE    DOOR 

The  lightning  chained  to  the  dynamo,  lights  the  world. 
A  few  grains  of  powder  confined  within  a  rifle,  saves  or 
takes  a  life,  and  so  on  all  throngh  nature;  the  energy 
which  is  used  within  its  limitations  gets  the  greatest  re- 
sults. 

I  would  free  self  from  its  prison  of  doubt  and  despair 
and  give  it  power  to  do  and  dare.  I  would  give  to  every 
man  that  command  of  his  soul,  that  knowledge,  that  en- 
durance of  the  flesh  which  would  let  him  look  fate  daunt- 
lessly  in  the  eye,  and  say  with  Brazenhead  the  Great,  "All 
I  ask  of  Providence  is  one  foot  inside  the  door."  By  his 
methods  the  efficient  man  is  hostile  to  that  superstition 
which  imitates  the  successes  of  others  without  any  appre- 
ciation of  the  inner  causes  of  the  success,  and  to  that 
dogmatic  business  philosophy,  which,  with  witless  indif- 
ference to  the  harm  done  to  the  unthinking  by  its  super- 
ficial and  hopeless  cynicism,  dismisses  dreams  and  clear 
thinking  and  ideals  as  the  pastime  of  school  men  and 
impractical  theorists. 

"Insist  on  Yourself;  Do  Not  Imitate" 

Efficiency  is  the  deathless  enemy  of  the  kind  of  man 
who  preaches  the  safety  of  slavishly  copying  the  untested 
experience  of  great  men.  It  is  ever  the  enemy  of  those 
wlio  take  the  pattern  of  their  waistcoats  from  Bond  Street, 
their  ties  from  Fra  Elbertus,  or  their  morals  from  New- 
port; or  who  take  their  religion  from  the  church  their 
employers  attend,  their  politics  from  the  party  on  top, 
and  of  that  mean  and  ignoble  brand  of  menial  mendicancy 
which  finds  its  expression  in  an  affectation  of  mere  singu- 
larity and  which,  as  Lowell  says,  "Is  so  often  resorted  to 
as  a  natural  recoil  from  an  uneasy  consciousness  of  being 
commonplace." 

Efficiency  is  the  enemy  of  the  "practical"  man  who  has 


THE    EFFICIENT    INDIVIDUALITY 


371 


never  done  a  really  constructive  thing,  because  he  fears  to 
be  true  unless  truth  is  gold  plated.  He  fears  to  be  dif- 
ferent if  difference  means  solitude;  he  fears  to  be  first,  for 
he  finds  a  melancholy  pleasure  in  being  the  last  in  doing 
anything,  no  matter  whether  it  is  giving  monkey  dinners 
to  degenerate  friends  or  supporting  the  idea  that  science 
has  nothing  to  do  with  art.  Says  the  Time  server:  "There 
are  those  who  find  their  joy  and  satisfaction  in  monkey 
dinners  and  flowing  neckties,  and  in  the  eminent  respec- 
tability of  father's  ways.  They  are  content  and  happy 
and  what  else  can  life  give  but  contentment  and  happi- 
ness?" Granted,  but  they  can  not  give  us  standards  of 
efficient  living  for  mankind.  Let  them  go  their  little  way, 
in  this  little  world,  to  their  little  graves.  They  are  the 
wasters. 

Emile  Faguet  puts  this  present  day  problem,  resulting 
from  highly  developed  individuality,  within  the  facts  when 
he  says : 

"In  every  profession  (business  as  well),  to  sum 
it  all  up,  the  root  of  the  evil  is  this,  that  we  believe 
that  mere  dexterity  and  cunning  are  incomparably  su- 
perior to  knowledge  and  that  cleverness  is  infinitely 
more  valuable  than  sound  learning."* 

The  Limit  of  Equality 

This  is  due  to  the  age-old  difference;  the  fight  be- 
tween aristocracy  and  democracy,  between  knowledge 
and  mere  experience,  between  class  and  individual. 

A  democracy  which  scorns  efficiency  digs  its  own 
grave;  because,  if  all  men  are  created  equal,  the  suitor 
is  as  good  as  the  judge,  the  layman  as  the  expert,  the 
patient  as  the  physician,  the  workingman  as  the  expert 
engineer,  the  office  boy  as  the  manager,  the  student  as 
his  teacher. 


•  "The  Cult  of  Incompetence,"   Emile  Faguet,  pp.   170-171. 


Z7^ 


ONE    FOOT     INSIDE    THE    DOOR 


The  fault  lies  in  a  two-fold  negligence  of  the  aristo- 
crat— the  negligence  of  the  body  and  of  the  mind  of  the 
democracy. 

The  democracy,  with  its  individualistic  tendency,  soon 
spreads  its  doctrine  of  equality  in  politics  to  cover  all 
things.  From  one  man's  being  equal  to  any  other  man 
before  the  law,  he  becomes  equal  to  any  other  man  in 
government,  business,  art — everything. 

The  true  democracy  will  always  have  an  aristocracy  of 
brains  and  of  skill  which  the  democracy  will  use  for  the 
common  good. 

The  true  aristocrat  looks  upon  the  democracy  as  nec- 
essary, as  the  doer  is  necessary  to  the  thinker.  This  is 
the  ideal  of  business  as  well  as  society.  We  must  strive 
for  it. 


CHAPTER    XXX 

ACCORDING  TO  THE  RULES 

A  friendship  founded  on  business  is  a  good  deal  better 
than  a  business  founded  on  friendship. 

— John  D.  Rockefeller. 

It  may  happen  that  I  shall  find  solace  in  that  which 
brings  sorrow  to  you;  and  that  which  to  you  speaks  of 
gladness  may  be  fraught  with  affliction  for  me.  But  no 
matter — into  your  grief  will  enter  all  that  I  saw  of  beauty 
and  comfort,  and  into  my  joy  there  will  pass  all  that  was 
great  in  your  sadness. — Maeterlinck. 

The  Prevalence  of  Law 

Even  Art  does  not  "happen."  The  artist  must  study 
technique  in  order  that  he  may  perfect  his  expression. 
There  is  an  exhibition  every  year  in  Paris  where  the  men 
who  think  art  is  lawless,  show  their  work.  Wasted  years, 
talents,  despair,  tears,  cynical  laughter,  and  impotence  are 
there.  Once  in  a  while  one  "finds  himself,"  only  to  turn 
from  those  who  have  outlawed  themselves  and  to  turn 
to  the  law,  for  he  finds  a  greater  freedom  within  that  law. 
That  poor  "Napoleon"  of  the  insane  asylum  is  free  to  be 
Napoleon,  and  yet  he  is  imprisoned.  He  has  no  mental 
shackles,  yet  is  he  not  the  most  pitiful  of  slaves?  If  there 
is  "many  a  mute,  inglorious  Milton"  who  has  heard  har- 
monies he  could  not  utter,  so  there  is  many  a  palsied 
Rembrandt  who  has  eaten  his  heart  out  amid  visions  of 
form  and  color  which  his  hand  is  never  destined  to  im- 
mortalize on  canvas.  Intentions  do  not  make  an  artist; 
are  not  too  many  artists  merely  men  of  artistic  intentions? 
The  real,  the  supreme  test  is — What  truth  is  there  in  the 
work  they  do? 

373 


374 


ONE  FOOT  INSIDE  THE  DOOR 


Some  feel  that  art  should  spring  full-armed  and  glori- 
ous from  the  inner  consciousness  of  men,  and  that  it  has 
no  relationship  to  the  light  that  has  burned  in  the  minds 
of  men  for  a  thousand  years.  Yet  one  of  America's  great- 
est painters,  William  M.  Chase,  in  writing  of  his  student 
experience  at  Munich,  said,  "I  set  to  work  to  find  out  how 
to  begin  a  picture,  an  important  and  neglected  step;  too 
many  are  hurrying  on  to  give  what  is  called  'finish'  be- 
fore they  have  grounded  their  work  in  truth,  which  must 
inform  and  uphold  the  entire  structure." 

Probably  the  most  persistent  and  typical  character- 
istic of  the  rule-of-thumb  man  in  any  walk  of  life,  is  the 
manner  in  which  he  points  to  the  artist  as  a  man  who 
does  not  believe  in  the  application  of  the  laws  of  science 
to  the  work  of  the  human  animal.  That  all  the  great 
artists  of  the  world  have  borne  testimony  to  the  inspira- 
tion of  science,  that  a  grasp  of  science  in  its  funda- 
mentals and  essentials  has  been  a  common  quality  of  all 
genius,  of  course,  is  absolutely  ignored,  because  such  rule- 
of-thumb  men  are  neither  familiar  with  genius  nor  with 
the  works  of  genius.  Because  a  second-class  mind  is  al- 
ways more  concerned  with  its  liberty  than  with  its  duty, 
it  is  always  more  concerned  with  trying  to  establish  its 
superiority  to  law  than  with  its  mastery  of  the  law. 

The  Method  of  Saint  Gaudens 

A  very  interesting  story  is  told  by  the  son  of  Augustus 
Saint-Gaudens,  of  the  way  the  great  sculptor  taught  his 
students: 

"Then  when  the  prepared  student  came  to  my 
father's  hands,  he  was  told  to  work  as  naively  and  as 
primitively  as  possible,  to  leave  no  tool  marks  showing, 
to  make  his  surfaces  seem  as  if  they  had  grown  there, 
to  develop  technique  and  then  to  hide  it.  He  assured 
tliem  that  tliey  need  never  fear  ruining  their  imagina- 


ACCORDING    TO    THE    RULES  375 

tion  or  their  sense  of  beauty  by  their  attention  to  the 
fundamentals  while  in  class.  Esthetic  qualities,  if  ever 
in  them,  would  remain,  though  they  could  not  be  ac- 
quired at  any  price  if  not  inherent.  They  were  in  the 
school  to  learn  to  handle  their  tools  and  to  copy  the 
model  accurately  and  absolutely,  until  the  ability  to 
construct  became  automatic.  They  should  be  right 
even  if  they  had  to  be  ugly,  and  to  that  end  they  should 
take  all  the  measurements  they  wished  of  a  model, 
almost  pointing  the  model  down  to  their  statue  if  they 
desired.  Occasionally  an  inspired  youth  would  remark 
that  he  never  measured  his  work,  upon  which  my  father 
would  promptly  rage,  for  he  said :  You  will  have 
trouble  enough  in  producing  good  art  as  it  is,  without 
scorning  such  mechanical  means  as  you  can  take.  Besides, 
continuous  measuring  will  train  your  eye  to  see  accurately. 
Nobody  can  give  the  length  of  a  foot  offhand  as  well  as  a 
carpenter.' " 

The  Individuality  and  Science 

The  art  of  business  is  practiced  in  the  same  way.  Busi- 
ness men  will  find  that  the  sciences  will  train  their  minds 
to  see  accurately,  to  understand  clearly,  for,  "even  a  sci- 
ence is  in  itself  ultimately  perceptible  as  an  artistic  con- 
struction, and  that  all  the  arts  live  and  renew  themselves 
by  the  sense  of  truth." 

When  a  man  sees  the  full  truth  in  a  thing,  he  does  so 
with  his  mind,  his  soul,  and  his  body.  If  the  scientific 
attitude  towards  the  thing  to  be  done  stifles  the  ability 
to  do  it,  it  is  because  the  man  who  is  to  do  the  work, 
hasn't  the  power  to  play  the  game  according  to  the  rules. 
While  at  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  I  knew  Win- 
chester Osgood,  who  came  to  us  from  Cornell  to  study 
medicine.  He  played  half-back  on  the  football  team.  Os- 
good was  a  great  individual  player,  but  he  wouldn't  follow 
interference,  he  played  by  himself.  We  used  to  hold  our 
breath  every  time  he  got  the  ball.  Many  times  he  won 
but  every  time  he  failed  was  when  he  didn't  play  the  game 


376 


ONE    FOOT    INSIDE    THE    DOOR 


according  to  the  rules.  He  was  an  individualist;  if  he  had 
been  a  strong  team  player,  he  would  have  been  one  of  the 
greatest  half-backs  the  sport  has  ever  produced. 

There  are  such  men  in  all  organizations.  Here  is  the 
man  who  is  "born  to  be  a  salesman,"  who  looks  upon  all 
instruction  as  an  invasion  of  his  sacred  individuality.  He 
does  not  understand  that  individuality  is  the  power  to  do 
a  thing  right  and  not  the  privilege  to  do  it  wrong.  Within 
the  rules  of  the  game,  a  man  finds  the  greatest  possibili- 
ties for  the  expression  of  a  self  worth  while. 

The  Germans,  who  have  been  trained  to  observe  sci- 
entifically the  laws  of  life,  are  today  great  in  the  drama, 
in  music,  in  painting,  in  commerce.  Why?  Because  they 
are  training  body,  mind  and  soul.  The  Germans  are  re- 
vived by  thought;  they  find  relaxation  in  changing  the 
efifort  of  the  mind.  The  Germans  have  backbone,  men- 
tally, morally,  and  physically;  they  are  not  afraid.  Tell 
a  German  artist  that  scientifically  formulated  truth  would 
injure  his  individuality,  and  he  would  say,  "On  the  con- 
trary, I  need  it  to  find  the  utmost  boundaries  of  the  world, 
that  I  may  work  on  the  edges  of  it.  I  am  glad  that  I  have 
but  two  hands  to  do  the  things  I  do  well,  because  it  is 
my  pride  that  I  can  do  what  I  do  as  well  as  it  is  done,  with 
but  two  hands.  I  might  have  four  or  a  dozen  pairs  of 
hands,  but  that  would  only  change  the  range  of  applica- 
tion, not  the  law." 

By  the  Rule 

The  real  artist,  the  real  lover  of  fine  things  done  well, 
loves  the  work  done  according  to  the  rules  of  the  game. 

The  football  player  loves  the  game  because  he  can 
boot  the  ball  between  the  goal  posts  and  can  make  his 
"downs"  according  to  the  rules.  The  clerk  finds  a  pride 
in  striking  a  trial  balance  the  first  time,  because  it  shows 


ACCORDING    TO    THE    RULES 


377 


that  by  the  standards  he  has  done  his  work  well.  The 
manager  who  is  told  that  he  must  produce  five  millions 
of  sales  and  not  spend  more  than  22.8  per  cent  for  selling 
expense,  is  "tickled  to  death"  if  he  can  do  it  for  a  per 
cent  less  than  the  estimate. 

Thus  a  man  finds  the  limitations  of  his  work  and  makes 
that  knowledge  a  means  to  success.  When  John  Wana- 
maker  started  in  the  retail  business  there  were  no  Hmita- 
tions  of  the  amount  a  salesman  could  charge  a  customer 
for  a  suit  of  clothes.  There  was  no  limit  on  the  salesman, 
but  that  fact  created  a  decided  limit  on  the  confidence  of 
the  customer;  hence  the  customer  expected  and  welcomed 
the  fight — and  called  it  bargaining.  Wanamaker  realized 
in  such  a  battle  when  there  was  competition  all  the  ad- 
vantage lay  with  the  customer.  So  he  said,  'T'll  limit  the 
salesman  to  one  price  and  thus  take  the  limit  of¥  the  cus- 
tomer's confidence." 

The  Supremacy  of  Law 

To  say  that  great  individuals  are  above  law  is  to  say 
what  cannot  be  true.  It  is  such  men  who  find  the  true 
law.  Harriman  in  his  railroad  work  had  laws  to  follow; 
they  were  just  larger  than  the  laws  you  and  I  have  to 
follow.  Just  as  the  law  of  two  multiplied  by  two  equals 
four  is  our  law;  so  the  law  of  higher  mathematics  which 
underlies  the  logarithm  and  is  beyond  us,  dominates  a  line 
of  thought  we  may  not  comprehend. 

Emperor  William,  who  works  with  his  ministers  until 
three  in  the  morning  to  keep  the  German  ship  of  state 
on  an  even  keel,  is  just  as  much  worried  as  we  would  be 
if  rudely  wakened  by  the  clang  of  fire  engines  in  our  front 
yard,  and  told  our  house  was  afire.  The  size  is  different, 
the  worry  is  the  same,  the  law  is  the  same.  Life  is  not 
"different"  in  the  palace  on  Wilhelmstrasse  than  it  is  in 


378 


ONE    FOOT    INSIDE    THE    DOOR 


the  cottage  on  Smith  Avenue;  so  every  man  who  rails  at 
law,  custom,  rule  as  "fettering  his  talents,"  doesn't  prac- 
tice what  he  preaches;  he  just  calls  law  a  different  name; 
i.  e.,  impulse,  intuition,  inspiration,  but  nevertheless  the 
law  holds  him  in  a  grip  that  he  can  no  more  escape  than 
he  can  escape  his  shadow. 

The  Rules  of  the  Road 

Every  man  should  feel  the  thrill  of  mastery — if  I  may 
paraphrase  another — to  the  ecstasy  of  knowing  that  some- 
thing of  his  own  has  survived  the  dangers  of  the  road  and 
has  arrived  at  a  goal  of  success.  As  an  employer,  you  can 
not  afford  to  deny  the  worker  that  pleasure,  if  you  would 
get  his  best;  as  a  worker  you  must  not  deny  yourself  that 
impetus  by  making  it  impossible.  You  can  not  ignore 
the  past  of  your  work.  Gounod  said:  "Study  the  masters, 
find  what  is  great  in  them,  think  their  thoughts,  feel 
through  them,  work  after  their  style."  A  man  can  not 
be  original,  except  he  be  a  bad  original,  who  does  not 
have  a  deep  intimacy  with  the  great  things  that  have  been 
accomplished.  As  a  master-builder  once  said:  "If  you 
begin  at  the  end,  you  are  in  danger  of  ending  at  the  be- 
ginning." 

No  artist  can  express  to  the  full  his  individuality  until 
he  has  learned  his  trade.  To  learn  one's  trade  is -to  learn 
how  the  masters  have  given  full  expression  to  the  soul, 
mind,  and  body  in  their  work.  Before  you  may  be  able 
to  give  that  expression  for  yourself,  and  until  you  are 
able  to  do  it,  you  are  unable  to  see  what  your  work  is 
worth,  and  you  are  using  your  own  abilities  to  so  much 
disadvantage.  You  must  creep,  then  walk,  then  run — 
that  is  the  rule  in  all  art,  science,  life.  The  child's  eternal 
question  is  "Why?"  and  the  Christ  said,  "Except  ye  be 
converted  and  become  as  little  children,  ye  shall  not  enter 


ACCORDING    TO    THE    RULES 


379 


into  the  kingdom  of  heaven."  He  urged  simplicity,  and 
simplicity  is  getting  back  to  the  first  principle,  the  original 
little  thing  from  which  the  big  things  come.  Descartes 
said,  "Take  nothing  for  granted."  If  the  business  man  is 
"too  busy"  to  find  out,  he  will  have  to  take  chances — and 
the  gambler  always  loses. 

Big  men  know  the  law  and  obey  it;  they  think,  and 
know  and  then  act;  they  get  the  facts,  not  opinions. 
Why?  Because  nothing  else  pays.  They  know  the  con- 
sequences. 

Lowell  said,  "A  poet  who  has  resolved  to  be  original, 
generally  ends  in  being  simply  peculiar."  Dryden  tells 
us  that  Milton  was  the  poetical  son  of  Spencer.  Shake- 
speare imitated  Lyly  in  "Love's  Labor  Lost;"  in  "Titus 
Andronicus,"  he  imitated  Kyd,  and  in  "Richard  II,"  he 
imitated  Marlowe.  By  these  imitations  he  attained  the 
greatest  of  his  tragedies  and  abilities;  through  such  prac- 
tice he  found  the  "rules  of  the  game."  He  found  the 
scientific  basis  of  the  work  he  had  in  mind  to  do — and  no 
less  surely  because  it  was  art. 

The  Testimony  of  the  Masters 

It  would  be  well  for  every  man  suffering  from  fear  for 
his  individuality,  to  read  Emerson's  "Quotation  and  Orig- 
inality." What  would  you  think  of  a  pianist  who  resented 
the  fact  that  he  had  to  use  the  machine  according  to  the 
laws  of  the  sequence  of  the  notes  on  the  piano?  Napoleon 
was  a  great  doer  of  deeds,  a  great  artist,  yet  he  was  a 
great  scientist.     As  he  said  when  he  was  still  in  Italy: 

"Great  events  hang  by  a  thread.  The  able  man 
turns  everything  to  profit,  neglects  nothing  that  might 
give  him  one  chance  more;  a  man  of  less  ability  by  over- 
looking just  one  thing,  spoils  all." 

The  training  of  Napoleon  in  artillery  science  caused 


38o 


ONE    FOOT    INSIDE    THE    DOOR 


him  to  denounce  vague  and  false  thinkers  when  he  said: 
"A  few  lessons  in  geometry  would  do  them  good."  On 
another  occasion  he  said: 

"There  is  nothing  in  the  military  profession  that 
I  cannot  do  for  myself.  If  there  is  no  one  to  make 
gunpowder,  I  know  how  to  make  it;  gun  carriages,  I 
know  how  to  construct  them;  if  it  is  founding  a  can- 
non, I  know  that.  If  the  details  in  tactics  must  be 
taught,  I  can  teach  them.  The  presence  of  a  general  is 
necessary.  He  is  the  head,  he  is  the  all  in  all  of  an  army. 
It  was  not  the  Roman  army  that  conquered  Gaul,  but 
Caesar ;  it  was  not  the  Carthaginians  that  made  the  armies 
of  the  republic  tremble  at  the  very  gates  of  Rome,  but 
Hannibal.  It  was  not  the  Macedonian  army  that 
marched  into  India,  but  Alexander.  It  was  not  the 
French  army  that  carried  war  to  the  Weser  and  to  the 
Inn,  but  Turenne.  It  was  not  the  Prussian  army  that 
defended  Prussia  during  seven  years  against  the  three 
strongest  powers  of  Europe,  but  Frederick  the  Great." 

The  master  must  know  more  than  one  thing.  He 
must  think,  he  must  feel,  he  must  do,  whether  he  be  the 
manager  in  the  store,  shop,  factory,  ofTfice,  the  craftsman 
in  the  factory,  or  the  artist  of  any  sort. 

Laws  of  Efficiency  Control 

Every  business  and  every  man  can  be  helped  by  ob- 
serving the  laws  of  science,  and  no  business  and  no  man 
can  become  the  greatest  and  strongest  unless  those  laws 
are  observed.  The  ten  commandments  are  the  ten  effi- 
ciencies of  social  order,  and  no  man  is  perfect  unless  he 
observes  them.  No  man  is  hurt  in  any  of  his  powers  of 
mind,  body,  or  soul  through  their  observance,  and  all  men 
are  stronger  because  of  them.  No  business  is  so  "differ- 
ent" that  it  can  ignore  the  laws  of  efficiency,  as  no  busi- 
ness is  so  big  that  it  can  ignore  the  law  of  society.  No 
man  is  so  big  that  he  can  ignore  the  law,  and  any  man  who 
says  he  is  above  the  law,  is  a  fool. 


ACCORDING    TO    THE    RULES  381 

When  a  big  business  man  came  before  the  Interstate 
Commerce  Commission,  and  made  the  remark  that  Mr. 
E.  H.  Harriman  "moved  in  a  world  apart  from  the  com- 
mon herd,"  he  said  what  was  true,  because  Mr.  Harriman's 
performances  moved  in  a  world  apart  from  the  common 
performances;  but  to  give  the  world  the  idea  that  any  set 
of  men  thought  Mr.  Harriman  was  "above  the  law,"  was 
one  of  these  badly  stated  half-truths  which  the  Mob  grasps 
as  a  club  with  which  to  beat  Brains  into  submission  to 
Ignorance. 

The  Test  of  Efficiency 

In  the  development  of  efficiency,  consequences  are 
taking  the  place  of  intentions.  The  efficient  man  no 
longer  apes  a  thing  because  it  has  been  done  before.  The 
Chinese  sailor  paints  eyes  on  the  prow  of  his  junk,  in  order 
that  it  may  see  its  way  through  the  fogs  of  the  rivers. 
He  has  done  it  for  centuries,  but  he  has  never  kept  any 
record  of  those  junks  that  were  sunk  through  collisions, 
notwithstanding  the  eyes.  So  business  men  continue  or 
refuse  to  advertise,  without  any  investigation  of  the  ef- 
fect of  their  decisions.  The  mere  fact  that  Mr.  Harriman 
for  many  years  ignored  the  public  interest  in  what  he  did, 
gave  all  the  little  minds  which  travel  in  the  ruts  worn 
by  greatness,  an  opportunity  to  do  those  things  which 
make  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission  necessary. 

This  great  fight  for  efficiency  is  a  fight  of  individual 
perfection  against  individual  imperfection — the  conquest 
of  mind  and  soul  over  the  body.  It  is  a  revolution  in  our 
ways  of  thinking.  As  George  W.  Perkins  recently  said: 
"Our  law  makers  have  very  rarely  been  business  men,  and 
our  business  men,  hardly  ever  been  lawyers.  The  law 
makers  have  been  speech  makers,  and  our  business  men 
are  rarely   speech   makers.     The  law  makers   lacking  in 


382  ONE    FOOT    INSIDE    THE    DOOR 

business  sense  and  a  realization  of  the  economics  of  busi- 
ness have  had  their  side  of  the  case  represented.  They 
have  made  speeches  against  business,  currying  favor  with 
the  mob,  and  we  are  due  for  our  seven  lean  years  in  con- 
sequence." 

I  reiterate:  We  have  been  a  nation  of  doers  and  not  a 
nation  of  thinkers.  Over  a  million  patents  have  been 
issued  at  Washington  and  it  is  estimated  that  70  per  cent 
of  them  represent  wasted  time  and  effort  and  thought, 
because  with  all  our  boasted  business  sense,  our  inventors 
are  typical  of  the  country;  i.  e.,  they  didn't  attempt  to 
find  out  why  a  thing  should  be  done  or  how  it  had  been 
attempted  or  to  familiarize  themselves  with  the  history 
of  why  the  thing  was  done.  They  did  not  start  work  on 
the  sure  foundation  of  previous  experience,  but  they  pre- 
ferred being  "free  individuals" — to  go  ahead  and  invent 
something,  and  then  find  out  that  it  had  been  better  done 
before,  or  that  it  was  of  no  value  after  it  was  done.  They 
were  the  slaves  of  their  own  ignorance,  by  a  law  more 
inexorable  than  the  one  they  despised. 

The  Efficient  Individualism 

A  new  day  is  dawning  when  we  shall  realize  that  the 
greatest  individualism  is  only  possible  under  the  reign  of 
law;  which  teaches,  that  it  is  better  to  be  constructive 
than  destructive;  that  co-operation  will  take  the  place  of 
competition ;  that  the  thought  and  work  of  today  will 
co-operate  with  all  the  best  thought  and  work  of  yester- 
day; that  labor  will  co-operate  and  not  compete  with 
capital  for  rewards  that  must  come  to  both;  that  all  ques- 
tions must  be  solved  for  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest 
number  when  we  get  together  on  the  common  ground  of 
faith,  of  work,  and  of  scientific  thinking. 

We  shall  have  the  upbuilding  of  a  John  Wanamaker  to 


ACCORDING    TO    THE    RULES 


383 


make  retailing  more  safe  and  sane  and  sure.  We  shall  add 
a  new  meaning  to  the  religion  of  the  future  when  we  inter- 
pret the  text  "To  him  that  hath  shall  be  given"  to  mean 
"To  him  who  hath  the  ability  shall  be  given  the  reward." 
There  will  be  fewer  tragedies  of  the  misfits.  We  will  make 
expert  audits  of  men's  tastes,  abilities,  circumstances,  tra- 
ditions. We  will  realize  that  the  great  work  of  such  men 
as  Professor  Frank  Parsons,  whose  gospel  of  fitness  as 
preached  in  "Choosing  a  Vocation,"  should  be  the  guiding 
code  of  the  employer  and  the  employe,  points  a  new  way 
for  individualities  to  attain  their  true  places;  and  all  that 
lies  in  life  that  you  and  I  are  to  grasp,  will  come  to  our 
hands;  for  life  is  only  as  big  as  we  are. 


PART  X 

That   Letter  to   Hooker 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

THE  BASIS  OF  DISCIPLINE 

"You  see  yonder  wallf"  asks  the  General. 

"Yes,  General." 

"What  color  is  it?" 

"White,  General." 

"I  tell  you  it  is  black.    What  color  is  it?" 

"Black,  General." 

"You  are  a  good  soldier."  — Victor  Hugo. 

The  True  Discipline 

General  Nelson  A.  Miles  tells  this  story  to  illustrate 
how  the  literal  mind  frequently  interprets  discipline: 
There  was  a  certain  colonel  who,  in  the  middle  of  a  cam- 
paign, was  seized  with  a  sudden  ardor  for  hygiene.  He 
ordered  that  all  the  men  change  their  shirts  at  once.  The 
order  was  duly  carried  out  except  in  one  company,  where 
the  privates'  wardrobes  had  been  sadly  depleted.  The 
captain  of  this  company  was  informed  that  none  of  his 
men  could  change  their  shirts  since  they  had  only  one 
apiece.  When  he  reported  this  fact,  the  colonel  hesitated 
a  moment,  then  said  firmly:  "Orders  must  be  obeyed. 
Let  the  men  change  their  shirts  with  one  another!" 

Not  infrequently  we  find  employes  in  large  organiza- 
tions "changing  shirts  with  one  another" — going  through 
the  form,  obeying  an  order  just  because  it  is  an  order,  but 
getting  none  of  the  spirit  of  true  discipline,  which  means 
co-operating  to  make  the  benefits  of  rule  or  order  effective. 
The  discipline  of  a  business  organization  is  reflected  in 
its  abiUty  to  deliver  to  the  right  place,  at  the  right  time, 
the  exact  kind  of  information,  commodity,  energy,  or  re- 

387 


388  THAT    LETTER    TO    HOOKER 

suits  which  the  system  at  its  highest  efficiency  can  pro- 
duce. 

The  Work  of  Discipline 

The  part  that  discipHne  plays  in  an  efficiently  con- 
ducted business  is  educative.  It  educates  the  employe 
to  do  the  work  without  waste.  Its  motive  is  to  nurture 
productive  powers  and  eliminate  wasteful  methods  and 
attitudes.  Discipline  develops  power  from  strength,  as 
the  trained  athlete  is  made  from  a  clodhopper;  it  makes 
clear  thinking  of  muddy  dreaming;  it  translates  mere 
busy-ness  into  dollars;  it  extracts  facts  and  figures  from 
intentions  and  opinions;  it  creates  mastery  out  of  clever- 
ness; it  breeds  enthusiasm  in  cold  hearts;  out  of  a  mere 
human  being  it  makes  a  man. 

Harrington  Emerson  tells  of  a  machine  shop  employ- 
ing a  thousand  men,  which  he  visited  one  dark  morning 
in  February.  As  the  whistle  blew  at  seven  A.  M.,  he 
watched  the  ammeter  line.  The  power  consumption  rose 
instantly  to  peak  and  stayed  there.  He  tested  it  again  at 
noon  and  again  at  six  to  get  the  line  of  lowering  and 
raising.  It  remained  unusually  stationary.  It  was  ap- 
parent that  the  shop  was  well  disciplined. 

In  railroads  where  there  have  been  a  number  of  ob- 
structions on  small  branches,  want  of  discipline  has  pro- 
duced the  lack  of  co-operation  among  the  parts,  thereby 
reducing  efficiency.  A  Western  road  which  has  devoted 
a  large  expenditure  to  the  advertising  and  development 
of  a  special  train  between  Chicago  and  New  York,  found 
that  the  division  for  which  the  train  was  originally  ad- 
vertised took  excellent  care  of  its  schedule.  Out  of 
thirty-nine  times  the  train  was  late  at  either  terminal,  93 
per  cent  of  the  time  lost  was  on  the  New  York  end  of  the 
system;  because  the  latter  system  had  a  train  of  its  own  in 


THE    BASIS    OF    DISCIPLINE  389 

which  it  was  particularly  interested,  and  one  which  en- 
tered into  competition  with  the  train  of  the  absorbed 
system. 

Discipline  is  a  principle  of  efficiency;  without  it  we 
cannot  get  power  from  where  it  is  to  the  place  where  we 
want  it  to  be. 

The  Discipline  of  Lincoln  and  Lee 

During  the  early  days  of  the  Civil  War,  President 
Lincoln  was  the  secret  object  of  pity  on  the  part  of  Se- 
ward, Chase,  Cameron,  Blair,  Greeley,  and  General  Scott, 
and  all  the  stay-at-home  managers  of  the  nation,  because 
he  didn't  enforce  "proper  discipline."  Seward,  his  Sec- 
retary of  State,  started  out  to  be  the  Warwick  of  the  ad- 
ministration, the  power  behind  the  throne,  but  was  made 
to  realize  through  that  famous  letter  which  Lincoln  wrote 
him,  that  Lincoln  was  going  to  be  President;  yet  Lincoln 
retained  Seward's  friendship  and  co-operation.  Li  the 
diary  of  Secretary  of  the  Navy  Gideon  Wells,  we  have 
some  illuminating  sidelights  on  Lincoln's  methods  of 
handling  these  men  and  issues,  which  were  those  of  a 
generous-hearted  father  dealing  with  a  bunch  of  able  and 
intensely  human  boys. 

It  was  the  Confederate  General  Lee's  inexhaustible 
patience,  tact,  and  sympathy  which  sometimes  made  him 
appear  to  lack  in  the  iron  with  which  authority  must 
be  known  to  be  plentifully  supplied.  Jackson  was  Lee's 
opposite;  Lee  was  more  like  Lincoln  in  method;  yet  of 
Lee.  General  Hooker  of  the  Federal  forces  said:  "With  a 
rank  and  file  vastly  inferior  to  our  own,  intellectually  and 
physically,  that  army  has,  by  discipline  alone,  acquired  a 
character  for  steadiness  and  efficiency  unsurpassed,  in  my 
judgment,  in  ancient  or  modem  times."  General  Hooker 
never  found  the  secret  of  that  discipline.     Lee  loved  his 


390  THAT    LETTER    TO    HOOKER 

men  and  trusted  them,  that  was  the  secret  of  it  all.     He 
received  what  he  gave. 

Lincoln's  power  for  mastery  rose  to  meet  emergencies; 
when  Seward  offered  to  relieve  the  President  of  the  bur- 
dens of  the  presidency,  Lincoln  didn't  fly  into  a  passion, 
but  with  precision  and  dignity  he  firmly  put  Seward  in 
his  proper  place.  If  Seward  had  resisted  there  would  have 
been  plenty  of  heat  in  a  moment,  but  Lincoln  knew  Se- 
ward was  honestly  sincere  in  his  offer.  We  might  con- 
trast this  attitude  with  that  of  the  general  manager  of  a 
plant  employing  7,000  men,  when  asked  to  put  in  a  sug- 
gestion system:  "What  for?  Do  you  think  I  want  that 
crowd  of  men  to  get  the  idea  they  can  show  me  how  to 
run  this  plant?" 

The  Hooker  Letter 

Lincoln  had  the  ability  to  recognize  the  inherent  rights 
of  individuality  and  to  make  that  use  of  them  referred  to 
in  a  preceding  chapter.  Lincoln  mastered  the  essential 
principle  of  discipline — the  power  to  direct  the  powers  of 
the  minds  and  bodies  that  worked  with  him,  so  that  they 
worked  in  harmony  with  his  own  high  ef^ciency.  Prob- 
ably his  letter  to  Hooker,  when  he  appointed  that  general 
to  the  command  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  is  a  per- 
fect example  of  disciplining  a  man  while  granting  him  a 
favor: 

Executive  Mansion, 

Washington,  January  26,  1863. 
Major-General  Hooker  : 

General — I  have  placed  you  at  the  head  of  the  army  of 
the  Potomac.  Of  course  I  have  done  this  upon  what 
appears  to  me  to  be  sufficient  reasons,  and  yet  I  think  it 
best  for  you  to  know  that  there  are  some  things  in  regfard 
to  which  I  am  not  quite  satisfied  with  you.  I  believe  you 
to  be  a  brave  and  skilful  soldier,  which,  of  course,  I  like. 
I  also  believe  you  do  not  mix  politics  with  your  profession, 


THE    BASIS    OF    DISCIPLINE  391 

in  which  you  are  right.     You  have  confidence  in  yourself, 
which  is  a  valuable  if  not  an  indispensable  quality. 

You  are  ambitious,  which,  within  reasonable  bounds, 
does  good  rather  than  harm ;  but  I  think  that  during  Gen- 
eral Burnside's  command  of  the  army  you  have  taken  coun- 
sel of  your  ambition  and  thwarted  him  as  much  as  you 
could,  in  which  you  did  a  great  wrong  to  the  country  and 
to  a  most  meritorious  and  honorable  brother  officer. 

I  have  heard,  in  such  a  way  as  to  believe  it,  of  your 
recently  saying  that  both  the  army  and  the  government 
needed  a  dictator.  Of  course  it  was  not  for  this,  but  in 
spite  of  it,  that  I  have  given  you  command.  Only  those 
generals  who  gain  successes  can  set  up  dictators.  What  I 
now  ask  of  you  is  military  success,  and  I  will  risk  the 
dictatorship.  The  government  will  support  you  to  the 
utmost  of  its  ability,  which  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  it 
has  done  and  will  do  for  all  commanders.  I  much  fear 
that  the  spirit  you  have  aided  to  infuse  into  the  army,  of 
criticising  their  commander  and  withholding  confidence 
from  him,  will  now  turn  upon  you.  I  shall  assist  you  as 
far  as  I  can  to  put  it  down.  Neither  you  nor  Napoleon,  if 
he  were  alive  again,  could  get  any  good  out  of  an  army 
while  such  a  spirit  prevails  in  it.  And  now  beware  of 
rashness ;  beware  of  rashness,  but  with  energy  and  sleep- 
less vigilance  go  forward  and  give  us  victories. 
Yours  very  truly, 

A.  Lincoln. 

Wherein  Hooker  Was  Right 

In  point  of  fact,  subsequent  events  proved  General 
Hooker  was  right — the  army  did  need  a  dictator.  It 
wasn't  until  General  Grant  was  made  the  practical  dic- 
tator, "in  full  command  of  all  the  armies,"  that  the  Con- 
federacy was  fought  to  its  finish.  Hooker  was  ahead  of 
his  time.  If  Hooker's  superior  had  given  more  attention 
to  his  suggestions  and  had  not  been  overcome  by  his  lack 
of  discipline  in  offering  them,  there  might  have  been  a 
different  result.  Lincoln  afterward  had  cause  to  revise 
his  judgment  that  "only  those  generals  who  gain  suc- 
cesses can  set  up  dictators,"  for  he  found   that   success 


392 


THAT    LETTER    TO    HOOKER 


comes  of  the  laws  of  nature  working  out  through  the 
plans  of  men. 

Grant  insisted  upon  different  methods  of  handling  the 
army  and  got  them;  but  Hooker  tried  to  do  his  work  the 
Washington  way  and  failed.  Just  as  Colonel  Goethals 
told  Mayor  Mitchel  of  New  York,  that  he  could  not  accept 
the  position  of  head  of  the  New  York  Police  Depart- 
ment unless  he  had  complete  power  of  hiring  and  firing; 
so  clear-headed  men  will  not  be  hampered  by  rules  made 
to  hold  incompetence  or  knavery  in  office. 

The  Basis  of  Discipline 

I  do  not  get  the  same  cold  lesson  out  of  Lincoln's  let- 
ter that  some  have  done.  With  some  the  principal  point 
in  the  letter  is  that  Lincoln  found  fault  with  Hooker  for 
criticising  his  superior  officers.  Loyalty  to  a  cause  and 
to  a  business  calls  for  a  higher  discipline  than  loyalty 
to  any  individual.  Loyalty  to  the  vision  of -things  well 
done  is  worth  more  to  the  business  and  to  the  world  and 
to  society,  than  loyalty  to  John  Smith,  whether  he  be 
president  of  the  republic,  a  general  manager  of  a  house, 
or  the  town  constable. 

The  idea  of  making  even  a  just  criticism  of  the  man- 
agement to  inferiors,  who  cannot  remedy  the  fault,  is  as 
foolish  as  the  notion  that  all  unimpeachable  knowledge 
lies  in  the  man  who  occupies  the  chair  of  general  man- 
ager. Good  discipline  does  not  rest  on  any  frail  founda- 
tion of  lip  service.  Discipline  depends  on  two  things 
which  managers  must  gain  and  foster,  and  which  no  sub- 
ordinate can  give  unless  he  has  them,  viz. :  enthusiasm  for 
the  cause;  confidence  in,  and  love  for,  the  man  who  knows. 

The  Basis  of  True  Authority 

Some  business  men  think  authority  is  the  big  stick, 
gold  letters  on  an  office  door,  or  a  man  behind  a  big  ma- 


THE    BASIS    OF    DISCIPLINE 


393 


hogany  desk,  or  the  uniform  on  a  policeman,  or  the  epau- 
lets on  the  shoulders  of  an  officer,  or  a  title,  or  gray  hairs. 
or  a  diploma.  It  is  none  of  these  things.  These  are  only 
the  catch-penny  symbols  of  authority.  They  are  good 
things  to  impress  the  mob.  They  never  did  authority  any 
harm,  but,  after  all,  they  are  simply  the  titles  of  the  book. 
Authority  lies  within. 

"Authority  is  the  extent  and  quality  of  the  knowledge 
of  the  evolution  of  anything,"  wrote  a  keen  business  man 
to  me  the  other  day,  "whether  it  be  in  mind  or  matter, 
whether  it  be  a  thought  or  an  action,  or  a  development, 
from  its  creation.  It  is  almost  always  to  be  found  in  its 
greatest  degree  in  its  creator." 

"It  is  the  extent  and  quality  of  knowledge";  in  other 
words,  authority  flows  to  him  who  knows. 

Many  young  men  and  a  lot  of  old  ones  have  always  be- 
lieved if  they  get  a  big  title  in  a  big  private  office  they 
are  getting  authority;  they  are  getting  only  the  chance. 
They  have  to  fill  the  office  before  they  get  the  counterpart 
of  authority.  Authority  is  the  thing  that  you  implant  in 
the  other  man's  mind.  It  is  the  dominion  your  mentality 
establishes  over  him.  It  is  the  fear  that  you  may  be 
right,  that  you  implant  in  his  mind.  It  is  the  thought  that 
you  make  him  think:  "Look  out  for  this  man;  he  knows," 
that  you  implant  in  his  mind. 

A  man  doesn't  have  to  press  his  suggestions,  or  en- 
force his  orders,  if  he  knows  and  you  know  he  knows. 
He  has  authority.  He  doesn't  have  to  have  a  title,  epau- 
lets, a  uniform,  a  private  office,  or  a  mahogany  desk. 
Make  no  mistake  in  this  matter,  however,  a  title,  a  uni- 
form, a  mahogany  desk,  a  private  office  never  hurt  au- 
thority. They  have  always  helped  it,  no  matter  how  big 
it  was. 

Authority  springs  from  disciplined  knowledge.     The 


394 


THAT     LETTER    TO    HOOKER 


great  need  is  for  executives  whose  authority  lies  in  their 
knowledge,  not  in  their  offices.  No  board  of  directors 
can  give  a  manager  authority;  they  can  give  him  his  title, 
but  his  authority  comes  from  within.  For  this  reason, 
organization  directors  are  analyzing  the  requirements  of 
managerial  positions  in  order  to  fit  the  job  with  a  man  who 
can  fill  it. 

Seniority  should  never  be  considered  in  filling  thinking 
executive  jobs,  when  a  concern  does  that  very  rare  thing 
— looks  on  every  department  head  as  a  possible  general 
manager. 

The  Filene  Standard 

Filene's  department  store  in  Boston  makes  a  very  in- 
teresting analysis  of  the  duties  of  an  executive,  for  the 
purpose  of  establishing  a  standard  of  qualifications  for 
applicants: 

Organizer : 

Ability  to  detect  weak  points  in  the  present  organization. 

Ability  to  look  ahead  and  provide  for  future  needs. 

Ability  to  locate  and  build  resources  for  securing  em- 
ployes of  a  better  type  than  the  average  applicant. 

Analyst : 

Ability  to  judge  men  with  limited  opportunity,  as  in 
engaging  new  men ;  with  more  favorable  opportunity,  as 
with  men  already  with  the  firm. 

Ability  to  recognize  the  limitations  of  men. 

Ability  to  recognize  the  possibilities  of  men. 

Executive : 

Qualities  of  leadership. 

Ability  to  handle  men,  to  secure  loyal  service  to  the  best 
ability  of  each. 

Handling  of  force  to  greatest  advantage  for  efficient  and 
economic  service. 

Initiative. 


THE    BASIS    OF    DISCIPLINE  t^c^^ 

Educator : 

Ability  to  provide  training  for  people  of  promise  for 
positions  of  larger  responsibility. 

Ability  to  provide  that  each  person  shall  personally 
be  equipped  with  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  duties  of 
his  position. 

Education : 

Sufficient  to  enable  him  to  meet  intelligent  men  on 
equal  footing. 

Sufficient  to  have  made  him  a  trained  thinker. 

Sufficient  to  have  made  him  successful  by  the  use  of  his 
mental  equipment  combined  with  hard  work. 

Experience : 

Of  an  executive  nature — preferably  in  a  large  organiza- 
tion, in  a  capacity  where  he  has  been  responsible  for  results 
by  his  own  ability  as  an  organizer. 

Character 

Personality 

A  general  manager  of  a  furniture  company  recently 
said  a  thing  right  to  this  point: 

"For  compulsion  (in  handling  a  sales  force)  I  would 
substitute  co-operation ;  for  coercion  I  would  substitute 
companionship ;  for  surveillance  I  would  substitute  re- 
sponsive sympathy." 

Criticism  vs.  Detraction 

The  distinction  between  the  initiative  which  makes 
a  man  tell  the  general  manager  where  the  latter  is  wrong 
and  the  cowardice  which  causes  him  to  take  his  fellows 
ofif  into  a  corner  and  tell  them  what  a  fool  the  general 
manager  is  must  be  apparent.  One  is  the  work  of  a  man 
who  is  willing,  if  need  be,  to  sacrifice  his  job  through  a  high 
sense  of  loyalty  to  the  interest  of  the  house;  the  other  is 
cowardly  envy  making  trouble  for  a  man  who  is  bigger 
than  he  is. 


396 


THAT    LETTER    TO    HOOKER 


Lincoln  criticised  Hooker  for  an  ambition  that  was 
cowardly,  not  merely  because  he  had  criticised  the 
methods  of  running  the  army.  The  methods  of  running 
the  army  had  been  wrong  or  Burnside  would  not  have 
been  displaced  by  Hooker.  Hooker  failed  because  he  had 
supported  his  ideas  by  intrigue,  innuendo,  and  cabals; 
he  had  not  acted  right,  if  Burnside  or  Seward  were  open 
to  suggestion.  The  latter  was  not  noted  for  open-mind- 
edness,  and  the  conduct  of  the  war  until  1863  demon- 
strated it. 

"Master  of  Himself" 

Probably  there  is  no  man  in  history  who  illustrates 
better  than  Lincoln  the  first  great  essential  of  discipline, 
"He  who  would  master  men  must  first  be  master  of  him- 
self." "Mastering,"  however,  has  been  made  to  mean  the 
least  of  its  qualities;  i.  c,  keeping  one's  temper,  when  in 
reality  that  is  but  a  small  part  of  self-mastery.  Every  day 
we  come  in  contact  with  men  who  have  excellent  com- 
mand of  their  tempers,  but  who  haven't  command  of  any- 
thing else.  They  are  nice,  easy,  pliable  chaps,  who  get 
along  beautifully  with  the  people  about  them,  who  do 
their  little  unimportant  tasks  with  an  equable,  serene  con- 
fidence in  the  ultimate  satisfactory  outcome  of  things,  and 
pass  through  life  like  pale  shadows,  leaving  but  a  slight 
impress  on  the  memories  of  those  who  knew  them. 

Master  of  Others 

The  volcanic  force  of  great  vitality  when  suddenly  ar- 
rested by  the  ignorant  interference  of  lesser  minds,  gen- 
erates heat;  witness  the  self-contained  Washington's 
famous  battlefield  interview  with  General  Lee  at  Mon- 
mouth, when  an  eye-witness  says  the  great  commander 
"cursed  until  the  trees  shook." 


THE    BASIS    OF    DISCIPLINE 


397 


When  some  ignorant  and  myopic  act  of  a  subordinate 
threatened  to  stop  temporarily  the  execution  of  great 
plans,  Henry  H.  Rogers  would  fly  into  a  passion  that 
made  subordinates  take  to  the  outer  offices. 

The  anger  of  the  elder  Morgan  was  epic.  We  have 
heard  of  several  classic  examples,  notably  when  he  told 
some  New  York  bankers  what  they  had  to  do  in  the  panic 
of  1907.  The  temper  of  J.  J.  Hill  is  a  by-word  among  the 
employes  of  the  Great  Northern. 

A.  T.  Stewart  disciplined  his  men  from  assistant  to 
office  boy  in  his  army  of  five  thousand.  The  story  is  told 
that  a  salesman  at  the  dress-goods  counter  by  inattention 
and  neglect  had  accumulated  $14  in  fines  in  a  single 
month.  He  protested  to  the  department  head,  but  find- 
ing him  inexorable  took  it  "up  front."  He  told  Mr. 
Stewart  that  he  would  rather  leave  than  submit  to  such 
extortion.  "Leave,  sir!  Leave!"  burst  out  Mr.  Stewart 
in  that  high  shrill  key  he  used  when  angered.  "Indeed, 
sir!  you  are  dismissed!  Any  man  that  can  out  of  a  salary 
of  $60  a  month  accumulate  $14  in  fines  furnishes  excellent 
proof  that  he  is  of  no  further  use  to  me.    Clear  out !" 

These  men,  masters  of  themselves,  can  master  others. 
The  idea  that  great  men  are  coldly  calculating;  that  their 
minds  work  Hke  some  automatic  machine  which  drives 
irresistibly  toward  the  consummation  of  given  objects, 
is  rot.  With  these  men  passion  is  superheated  energy 
generated  by  opposition.  It  is  simply  that  additional 
power  called  up  to  override  opposition  and  to  push  an 
idea  through  to  its  consummation.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
it  is  the  perfect  discipline  of  their  powers  that  makes 
pa.s.sion  thus  automatically  respond  to  opposition. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

DISCIPLINE  FOR  GROWTH 

Scientific  management  can  be  developed  in  any  group  of 
people  only  through  a  course  of  individual  and  collective 
discipline  that  must  last  over  a  long  period  of  years. 

— Morris  L.  Cooke. 

The  Purpose  of  Discipline 

What  is  the  most  efficient  method  of  increasing  disci- 
pHne?  By  discipline,  we  desire  so  to  direct  the  thinking 
and  emotions  of  men  that  we  may  give  them  enthusiasm 
for  the  right  thing  and  confidence  in  our  leadership.  We 
must  never  kill  enthusiasm,  for  when  we,  in  any  manner, 
permanently  lessen  the  ardor,  zeal,  courage,  or  sympathy 
of  the  worker,  by  so  much  is  our  discipline  a  failure,  be- 
cause it  takes  the  emotions  out  of  life;  and  a  life  without 
loves,  hates,  hopes,  and  fears,  is  a  life  not  worth  living; 
when  taken  out  of  work,  the  work  is  not  worth  doing. 

Intellect,  and  its  fruits  —  ideas,  systems,  and  prin- 
ciples— are  dead,  if  they  have  no  emotions  to  give  them 
zest  and  flavor.  We  must  stir  men  to  think,  so  that  they 
may  arrive  at  truth;  hence  the  discipline  of  the  facts  of 
experience;  given  that,  we  must  stir  their  hearts  to  a  love 
for  the  ends  obtained  and  the  vision  born.  Out  of  it  all, 
we  get  the  discipline  which  makes  every  power  of  mind, 
soul,  and  body  instantly  responsive  to  the  call  of  the  work 
and  the  cause.  This  applies  to  the  boss  as  well  as  the 
worker.  Analysis  gives  us  three  methods  of  disciplining 
for  growth — for  regulation,  not  strangulation,  of  our 
powers:* 


•  "The   Natural  Way,"   Patterson  Du   Bois. 


DISCIPLINE    FOR    GROWTH 


399 


First — Discipline  by  Indirection. 
Second — Discipline  by  Deflection. 
Third — Discipline  by  Counteraction. 

The  Discipline  of  Indirection 

The  discipline  of  indirection  is  illustrated  by  placing 
a  man  in  an  atmosphere  where  he  can  do  his  work  only 
in  the  right  way,  because  it  will  be  the  easiest  way  to  do 
it.  It  is  like  putting  a  recruit  in  the  middle  of  a  veteran 
company  in  close  formation.  If  he  doesn't  keep  in  step, 
the  man  behind  him  is  going  to  walk  on  his  heels,  the 
men  alongside  will  jostle  him,  and  he  will  walk  on  the 
heels  of  the  man  in  front.  Unconsciously,  he  will  keep 
in  step. 

A  Book  of  Management 

Some  time  ago  I  began  collecting  material  for  a 
"Book  of  Management,"  preparing  it  from  observations 
and  suggestions  I  got  from  a  wide  correspondence  with 
executives,  together  with  adaptations  to  the  needs  of  our 
business  from  the  speeches  and  articles  of  others,  adding 
also  the  results  of  conferences  with  our  department  heads. 
I  had  five  copies  of  everything  made  and  let  it  be  known 
at  our  regular  weekly  department  meeting  that  such  a 
book  was  being  prepared.  The  book  grew  to  two  volumes 
of  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  typewritten  pages  each. 
From  the  first,  certain  young  men  in  the  business  read 
the  new  material.  Soon  the  leaven  began  to  work.  New 
ideas  plainly  traceable  to  the  "Book  of  Management"  be- 
gan to  torment  the  heads  of  departments,  where  "every- 
thing was  all  right." 

Then  came  changes,  because  the  "Book  of  Manage- 
ment" rather  accurately  described,  with  the  aid  of  certain 
well-known  managers,  the  kind  of  department  heads  who 


400 


THAT    LETTER    TO    HOOKER 


were  content  to  leave  things  alone.  I  was  careful  to 
trace  every  article  to  its  practical  source,  to  show  that 
the  recommendations  were  in  successful  use,  and  fre- 
quently I  would  show  the  application  of  an  idea  to  some 
weakness  of  our  own,  and  then  insert  a  copy  of  a  letter 
giving  later  details  than  the  article  contained. 

I  urged  no  one  to  read  the  "Book  of  Management," 
and  only  the  more  aggressive  of  the  young  men  did  read 
it,  but  it  started  a  lot  of  action.  It  soon  became  a  part 
of  the  regular  reading  diet  of  a  number  of  the  assistant 
heads  and  a  few  heads  of  departments. 

Montesquieu  says:  "To  suggest  where  you  cannot 
compel,  to  guide  where  you  cannot  demand,  that  is  the 
supreme  form  of  skill."  I  might  say  the  same  of  sales- 
manship as  of  management.  Contrast  this  with  the  rule- 
of-thumb  methods  of  the  manager  who  works  on  a  basis 
of  personal  loyalty,  military  in  its  spirit. 

Stop  asking  if  your  employes  are  loyal  to  you,  but 
ask  if  you  are  loyal  to  them.  Be  assured,  if  you  are  not, 
you  have  no  loyalty  from  them.  There  is  no  discipline 
possible  unless  there  is  loyalty. 

Noblesse  Oblige 

Under  the  military  system  it  is  always  the  private  who 
is  in  the  wrong;  it  is  not  possible  for  the  boss  or  the 
manager  to  be  in  the  wrong.  Under  scientific  manage- 
ment, however,  it  is  realized  that  there  is  a  duty  of  in- 
struction of  the  inferior  by  the  superior,  as  well  as  a  duty 
of  teachableness  from  the  inferior  to  the  superior.  Un- 
der scientific  management,  it  is  realized  that  this  duty 
of  the  superior  to  the  inferior  is  very  much  larger,  both 
in  scope  and  quality,  in  tension  and  social  value,  than  the 
duty  of  the  inferior  to  the  superior.  I  believe  that  it  is 
vastly  easier  to  instil  loyalty  into  the  heart  of  the  inferior 


DISCIPLINE    FOR    GROWTH 


401 


when  the  superior  shows  that  his  rule  is  for  the  benefit 
of  the  inferior,  and  that  benefit  appears  as  soon  as  the 
spiritual,  physical,  and  mental  powers  are  increased.* 
This  calls  for  the  discipline  of  knowledge. 

Discipline  by  Indirection  in  Operation 

Soon  after  Mr.  Frank  A.  Vanderlip,  now  President 
of  the  National  City  Bank,  of  New  York,  went  to  Wash- 
ington, he  was  made  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 
Among  other  duties,  he  was  given  that  of  raising  the  effi- 
ciency of  the  department.  He  found  that  a  number  of 
the  heads  of  bureaus,  etc.,  got  down  to  their  offices  from 
fifteen  minutes  to  an  hour  late.  He  made  it  a  practice 
for  nearly  three  weeks  after  he  found  this  out,  to  reach 
the  office  early  and  call  up  the  heads  of  the  subordinate 
bureaus,  and  if  one  wasn't  in,  he  would  ask  the  chief  clerk 
to  draw  the  chief's  attention  to  his  call.  The  head  of  the 
bureau  would  arrive  late  and  find  that  Vanderlip  had 
called  him,  and  on  making  inquiry  of  Vanderlip,  he  would 
probably  find  out  that  the  "matter  had  been  attended  to." 
After  this  happened  two  or  three  times,  the  head  of  the 
bureau  would  be  there  to  answer  that  'phone  himself. 

The  discipline  of  indirection  was  thus  applied  to  a 
green  clerk  in  an  office:  in  handling  certain  accounts,  the 
clerk  to  the  left  of  him  gave  him  bills  to  be  entered  ac- 
cording to  printed  instructions  in  certain  sequence,  and 
the  clerk  on  the  right  of  him  had  to  receive  the  bills  in 
the  same  sequence.  After  a  week  of  trying  to  do  it  in 
a  way  different  from  that  given  in  instructions,  he  fell 
into  line.  At  first  the  instructions  were  carelessly  re- 
garded because  the  undisciplined  mind  always  tries  to  be 
different,  but  the  clerk  soon  got  in  line  because  it  was 
easiest  to  do  it  right. 


•  See    "The    Spirit    and    Social    Significance    of    Scientific    Management,"    by 
Morris  L.  Cooke,  Journal  of  Political  Economy,  June,  1913. 


402  THAT    LETTER    TO     HOOKER 

The  average  man  will  come  to  realize  that  he  will  do 
his  work  easiest  by  following  the  law.  He  gets  more 
done  and  more  satisfaction  out  of  doing  it  by  following 
the  right  way.  The  discipline  of  indirection  is  felt  in  a 
church.  Enter  it;  you  feel  the  soft  lights,  the  hushed 
silence,  you  step  more  softly,  speak  in  a  lower  tone,  you 
are  under  the  discipline  of  suggestion.  Any  office  could 
have  such  an  atmosphere,  as  Cortelyou  required  in  his 
when  he  was  Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 

But  suppose  our  man  has  outside  influences  at  work 
and  has  already  formed  bad  habits.  He  fails  to  get  the 
spirit  of  the  new  way.  He  does  not  get  in  step.  Then 
you  must  concentrate  on  him,  give  him  constant  direc- 
tion by  surrounding  him  more  closely  with  suggestions 
of  the  right  way  to  do  the  work  you  want  done;  in  other 
words,  deflect  him  from  the  course  into  which  his  bad 
habits  force  him  by  stopping  him  in  every  by-path,  and 
putting  up  signs,  so  to  speak,  that  keep  him  to  the  main 
road.  Deflect  his  attention  to  the  main  purpose  by  con- 
stant suggestion  on  each  thing  he  does;  watch  him 
closely;  be  helpful;  be  careful;  let  him  see  why  the  other 
men  are  getting  ahead.  Not  only  tell  him  they  are,  but 
tell  him  why  that  man  got  an  extra  vacation,  and  the 
other,  a  raise.  Let  him  feel  a  constant  urge  back  to  the 
right  line,  but  do  not  command  or  prod  or  "call  him 
down."  You  are  arousing  his  desire  to  meet  your  confi- 
dence and  to  merit  your  faith. 

Discipline  by  Deflection 

An  example  of  discipline  by  deflection  was  shown  in  a 
mailing  department  where  there  were  a  large  number  of 
girls  occupied  in  writing  envelopes.  Errors  had  been  a 
constant  source  of  annoyance  and  expense.  Instructions 
had  been  issued,  discipline  by  indirection  had  been  tried. 


DISCIPLINE    FOR    GROWTH 


403 


and  yet  the  errors  persisted  with  only  a  sHght  decrease 
because  the  girls  did  not  realize  that  following  orders 
was  of  personal  interest  to  them.  The  principle  of  play- 
ing a  game  was  introduced;  the  game  idea  is  one  of  the 
best  methods  of  disciplining  a  force,  e.  g.,  contests  in 
selling  organizations. 

A  large  blackboard  was  put  up  at  the  end  of  the  room, 
on  which  the  names  of  the  girls  who  were  handling  the 
work  were  written.  Each  morning  the  inspector  listed 
the  score  each  girl  had  made  the  day  before.  At  the  end 
of  three  or  four  weeks,  promotions  were  announced  and 
increases  of  pay  given  to  those  who  had  the  best  scores, 
and  yet  did  work  of  a  satisfactory  quality.  In  a  short 
time  70  per  cent  of  the  errors  had  been  cut  out.  This 
was  discipline  by  deflection.  It  requires  patience,  as  in 
training  a  child.  For  instance,  a  child  cries  for  jam  at 
the  table,  and  you  deflect  its  interest  to  the  idea  that 
bread  and  butter  with  some  apple-sauce  added  is  very  much 
better. 

Suppose  the  discipline  by  deflection  fails  because  the 
person  has  deliberately  decided  to  take  a  by-path;  there  is 
a  fixed  determination  to  "do  as  I  please,"  the  while  know- 
ing that  it  is  against  the  rules,  wishes,  and  even  the  good 
of  the  organization.  Place  before  that  man  the  error 
to  which  his  road  is  leading  him;  show  him  what  others 
are  getting  by  taking  the  right  path,  and  what  he  will 
get  by  going  the  path  he  is  pursuing.  This  will  require 
that  you  have  in  facts  and  figures  what  the  results  are. 
Keep  before  him  for  comparison,  what  he  accomplishes, 
and  what  those  who  are  following  the  better  road  are  ac- 
complishing, and  if  necessary,  show  to  him  the  inevitable 
end  of  the  pursuit  of  his  policy — separation  of  himself 
from  the  business.  Self-interest  will  quickly  bring  him  into 
the  right  road. 


404 


THAT    LETTER    TO    HOOKER 


The  Better  Way 

Among  the  obvious  devices  of  the  average  business 
man  to  promote  discipline  which  he  thinks  synonymous 
with  efficiency,  is  a  Complaint  Department  and  a  system 
of  fines,  a  relic  of  the  military  type  of  organization. 

Both  of  these  are  wrong  when  used  alone.  They  are 
negative,  friction-producing  devices  of  the  rule-of-thumb 
era,  when  help  was  easy  to  get,  and  markets  were  so 
hungry  that  they  didn't  care  how  they  got  what  they 
wanted.  All  you  cared  about  was  that  people  should  be 
on  hand  at  certain  times  and  that  you  could  trace  errors. 

In  the  new  era  we  have  discontinued  the  Complaint 
Department  and  established  an  Efficiency  Department  in 
its  place. 

We  have  learned  that  it  is  better  to  call  men  up  in- 
stead of  calling  them  down.  It  is  better  to  prevent  error 
than  to  correct  it. 

In  an  address  before  a  society  of  business  men,  R.  B. 
Wattley,  Secretary  of  the  United  Cigar  Stores  Company, 
said:  "Our  policy  in  handling  our  salesmen  from  an  audit- 
ing standpoint  is  indicated  by  the  fact  that  in  our  earliest 
days  the  department  which  was  entrusted  with  the  work 
done  by  the  Department  of  Efficiency  was  called  the 
Black  Book  Department.  The  Black  Book  and  black 
marks  alike  have  been  banished  to  the  limbo  of  inefficient 
things,  unwept  and  unsung,  and  the  Department  of  Effi- 
ciency and  the  White  List  with  its  Honor  Roll  and  awards 
have  taken  their  place." 

This  is  the  positive,  constructive  principle.  Mr. 
Wattley  then  described  the  method  of  applying  the  prin- 
ciple to  the  work  of  the  people  in  the  organization.  I 
have  seen  the  same  principle  applied  in  sales  organizations 
after  years  of  big-stick  work,  and  in  one  case  sales  in- 
creased 91  per  cent  in  eleven  months.     In  an  office  force, 


DISCIPLINE    FOR    GROWTH  405 

production  increased  37.6  per  cent  in  five  months.  In 
handling  lateness,  where  good  instead  of  merely  bad 
records  were  published,  lates  were  decreased  29.3  per 
cent. 

The  Effective  Discipline 

In  too  many  organizations  good  results  are  taken  as 
a  matter  of  course,  only  inferior  service  is  given  special 
attention. 

Both  should  receive  attention,  and  the  meritorious 
service  should  be  noticed,  so  that  every  one  may  know 
of  it. 

This  is  the  discipline  which  is  most  effective.  You 
make  the  whole  organization  work  for  you,  when  you 
award  mentions  to  individuals  and  departments  for  ex- 
cellent service.  "My  experience  has  shown  me  that  it  is 
just  as  easy,"  said  John  D.  Rockefeller  to  one  of  his 
assistants,  "to  turn  a  good  man  into  a  poor  one  as  it  is 
to  turn  a  poor  man  into  a  good  one.  Many  of  the  most 
valued  assistants  I  have  around  me  seemed  to  be  un- 
promising material  at  first;  and  let  me  say,  Mr.  , 

that  includes  yourself.  Take  time  to  talk  with  those 
young  fellows  when  you  are  alone.  Talk  to  them  about 
business,  just  as  you  would  talk  to  me.  Thirty  minutes  of 
that  will  put  two  years  of  steadiness  into  them.  They'll 
have  something  to  think  about.  You'll  be  making  men 
instead  of  employes.  Rouse  interest  and  you  enlist  their 
interest,  and  the  energies  that  interest  never  fail  to  pro- 
duce. The  future,  not  the  past,  is  ahuays  the  banner  to  float 
before  young  delinquents." 

Discipline  by  Counteraction 

Very  often  one  may  operate  on  the  old  rule,  "give  a 
calf  enough  rope  and  it  will  hang  itself";  i.  e.,  let  the  em- 


4o6  THAT    LETTER    TO    HOOKER 

ploye  go  ahead  in  his  wrong-headed  course,  and  when 
he  finally  comes  a  cropper  or  two,  let  him  get  in  line. 
This  is  discipline  by  counteraction.  Invariably  when  new 
assistants  come  into  my  department  I  allow  them  to  "cut 
the  red  tape"  in  my  system  as  far  as  they  like;  then  when 
they  have  tied  themselves  in  a  snarl,  I  see  that  they  work 
at  getting  out,  and  give  them  the  time  and  attention  to 
unravel  the  knots  and  get  them  started  right.  I  get  two 
results:  (a)  get  them  naturally  in  line  with  the  rules  of 
the  department;  (b)  find  if  they  have  a  better  way  to 
handle  the  routine  and  work  of  the  department. 

The  method  of  letting  them  alone  has  paid.  Gradually, 
if  the  man  is  worth  while,  in  an  atmosphere  of  discipline, 
he  will  come  back  to  the  right  road  and  think  that  he  has 
done  it  of  himself.  He  has  not  felt  the  weight  of  au- 
thority, but  he  has  felt  the  push  of  circumstances.  This 
is  the  natural  way  of  keeping  and  developing  men.  Even 
Napoleon,  strong-willed,  passionate,  dominating,  over- 
bearing as  he  was,  understood  this  amenable,  emotional 
character  of  the  child  in  all  men.  Read  his  manifestos 
to  his  army,  of  whom  he  spoke  so  often  as  "My  Children." 
That  emotional  appeal  didn't  happen;  it  was  one  of  the 
essential  elements  of  his  method  of  creating  the  sense  of 
organization — the  esprit  de  corps. 

Self-Control 

As  the  individual  is  constantly  striving  toward  power, 
whether  he  be  general  manager  or  office  boy,  the  striving 
must  be  leavened  with  a  command  of  self  and,  at  the  same 
time,  with  the  kind  of  knowledge  which  commands  the 
respect  of  others.  A  careful  analysis  of  enduring  commer- 
cial success  will  pretty  conclusively  prove  that  the  great 
individuals  in  business,  dominating  other  individuals  and 
iiiinds,  are  those  who  look  upon  the  average  man  as  a 


DISCIPLINE    FOR    GROWTH 


407 


child.  To  treat  the  average  man  as  if  his  were  as  great 
a  mind  as  Plato's  or  as  if  his  were  as  valuable  a  soul  as 
Paul's  or  his  heart  as  great  a  heart  as  Christ's,  is  an  ab- 
surdity in  the  face  of  plain  facts.  All  men  are  alike  in 
that  they  have  feelings  and  mind;  and  we  know  that  mind 
does  not  mould  men,  but  that  their  emotions  do.  Thus 
we  must  mould  men  by  a  knowledge  of  their  emotions 
and  of  the  ways  of  appealing  to  and  arousing  them. 


CHAPTER    XXXIII 

THE  ESSENTIALS  OF  DISCIPLINE 

Discipline,  or  the  habit  of  obedience,  is  a  better  sort  of 
courage.  Discipline  is  the  acquired  faculty  of  surrendering 
an  immediate  personal  good  for  sake  of  a  remote  and 
impersonal  one  of  greater  value. — George  Santayana. 

Discipline  That  Kills 

Discipline  that  drives  out  the  desire  to  make  good, 
that  reduces  the  sales  force  to  a  lifeless  automatic  ma- 
chine, warns  us  that  ignorance  is  in  the  saddle;  no  big  man 
ever  makes  that  mistake.  In  spite  of  Hooker's  deficiency 
in  temperament,  Lincoln  made  him  Commander-in-Chief 
of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  because  he  thought  he  saw 
enthusiasm,  confidence,  and  brain  power  in  Hooker  that 
would  win  battles.  If  Lincoln  had  been  an  ordinary  dis- 
ciplinarian he  would  never  have  appointed  Hooker  to  the 
command,  because  the  ordinary  disciplinarian  conceives 
discipline  to  be  an  end  in  itself,  whereas  it  is  only  a  means. 

Obstacles  to  Discipline 

There  are  six  factors  which  prevent  the  growth  of 
discipline  in  a  force  or  an  individuality: 

First — Failure  to  respect  the  motional  force  of  the 
heart  and  to  train  it  for  expression;  or  in  the  words 
of  Professor  William  James,  "Forget  what  you  feel, 
what  have  you  expressed?" 

Second — Failure  to  set  an  example  of  observance  of 
the  principles  of  ef^ciency. 

Third — Failure  to  make  it  physically  easy  to  do  the 
work  expected. 

408 


THE    ESSENTIALS    OF    DISCIPLINE 


409 


Fourth — Failure  to  see  the  end  of  the  rules  you  make 
from  the  beginning. 

Fifth — Failure  to  cash  in  on  the  enthusiasm  which  you 
arouse,  by  making  it  do  something. 

Sixth — Letting  the  organization  or  yourself  translate 
pride  in  its  success  into  indifference  to  its  short- 
comings; i.  e.,  letting  it  get  a  "swelled  head." 

The  "Shoulder  Touch"  of  Discipline 

Discipline  is  the  law  of  concentration  applied  to  the 
energies  of  mind  and  body.  A  self-disciplined  man  is  the 
man  who  knows  how  to  do  a  thing  right  and  insists  always 
that  all  his  faculties  shall  be  concentrated  upon  doing 
that  thing  in  that  way.  Company  discipline  is  the  organi- 
zation sense  endeavoring  to  keep  all  the  employes  true  to 
the  policy  and  the  vision  of  the  house.  Company  dis- 
cipline and  self-discipline  must  work  together. 

Keep  yourself  true  to  the  organization  and  what  it  is 
trying  to  do.  Find  out  what  it  wants  done.  Get  in  tune 
with  it,  and  if  you  can't  get  in  tune  with  it  and  you  find 
out  that  something  is  wrong,  talk  it  over  with  your  man- 
ager. Try  to  find  out  what's  the  matter.  It  may  be  with 
you  or  it  may  be  with  the  house.  That  sense  of  disci- 
pline is  vastly  important,  because  if  you  are  not  in  har- 
mony, if  you  can't  get  in  harmony  with  the  house,  the 
best  thing  you  can  do  is  to  get  out,  both  for  your  own 
sake  and  for  the  sake  of  the  house. 

The  Power  of  Obedience 

As  Bacon  said,  "Nature  is  commanded  by  obeying 
her,"  and  that  business  will  command  which  recognizes 
that  business  is  always,  under  whatever  guise,  business. 

A  German  philosopher  said,  "Under  any  given  con- 
dition, that  thing  is  right  for  the  individual  to  do,  which 


4IO 


THAT    LETTER    TO    HOOKER 


would  be  right  if  everybody  did  it."  Think  that  over, 
and  put  it  as  a  test  to  the  things  you  do.  Suppose  every- 
body did  that  thing. 

The  Weakness  of  Deceit 

If  you  can't  tell  a  man  what  to  do  and  how  to  do  it, 
tell  him  how  he  can  find  out.  If  you  can't  tell  him  how 
he  can  find  out,  ask  somebody  inside  or  outside  the  busi- 
ness, who  can  give  you  the  information.  The  disciplined 
mind  says,  "Get  it — no  condition  shall  thwart  me!"  and 
such  a  mind,  naturally  and  simply,  proceeds  to  find  out, 
because  it  never  occurs  to  disciplined  intelligence  to  con- 
sider a  thing  hopeless  unless  it  knows. 

You  know  when  you  can't  answer  a  question,  so  don't 
blufif.  People  may  not  come  back  and  tell  you  that  you 
don't  know,  but  they  file  away  in  their  minds  the  con- 
viction that  you  tried  to  bluf¥.  You  have  lost  in  authority 
by  just  so  much.  The  disciplined  mind  hates  a  lie,  because 
it  shows  weakness ;  it  hates  a  blufif,  for  the  same  reason. 

Discipline  and  Sympathy 

Freedom  cannot  exist  unless  there  goes  with  it  a 
thorough  appreciation  of  responsibility.  Among  all 
people  there  must  be  this  restraint  of  discipline.  Dis- 
cipline is  the  heart  and  soul  of  ef^ciency.  If  a  man  would 
be  free  in  his  work  to  do  the  best  thing  that  he  can  do, 
he  must  have  the  sense  of  responsibility.  He  must  be 
responsible  for  the  policy  of  the  house,  for  the  future  that 
it  is  developing,  to  his  fellow  employes;  he  must  have  the 
sense  of  co-operation,  for  no  man  can  play  the  game  alone. 
He  must  work  not  only  for  himself,  but  for  all.  If  he 
doesn't  work  for  all,  he  doesn't  work  for  himself.  Dis- 
cipline is  two-sided:  it  insures  that  things  well  done  shall 
he  praised;  that  the  failures  shall  be  checked  and  guided 


THE    ESSENTIALS    OF    DISCIPLINE 


411 


aright  without  the  harshness  which  calls  attention  to  the 
wrong  only,  but  with  the  sympathy  which  makes  the 
right  way  attractive.  It  is  always  positive,  not  negative; 
constructive,  not  destructive;  and  it  knows  that  only  the 
truth  about  the  thing  pays  because  it  is  the  only  thing 
that  can  survive. 

Hugh  Chalmers,  as  a  sales  manager,  developed  sev- 
eral vital  principles  in  moulding  an  organization  of  sales- 
men; one  was  that  praise  was  his  greatest' sales  stimulant 
because  it  was  an  appeal  to  the  emotions.  Circular  let- 
ters and  "sales  bulletins"  issued  to  sales  organizations  are 
far  too  often  mere  methods  of  fault-finding  and  are  not 
inspirational.  The  salesman  is  getting  his  "bumps"  day 
in  and  out,  fighting  his  customers'  criticisms  of  the  house, 
striving  against  the  indifiference  of  buyers,  suffering  the 
consequences  of  the  mistakes  of  every  underpaid,  thought- 
less clerk  at  the  home  office,  and  he  needs  the  antitoxin 
of  praise.  In  that  letter  to  General  Hooker,  Lincoln  is 
not  unmindful  of  the  value  of  praise — over  half  of  it  is 
written  to  encourage  Hooker. 

I  worked  with  a  general  manager  for  some  years  who 
made  it  a  practice  whenever  he  had  occasion  to  criticise 
me  for  a  thing  that  he  didn't  like,  to  call  me  in  and  state 
the  criticism  frankly  and  fairly  and  give  me  to  understand 
that  he  wouldn't  like  it  to  happen  again  or  that  he  was 
ready  to  consider  my  reasons  for  doing  it.  Probably 
within  twenty-four  hours  I  would  get  a  note  compliment- 
ing me  on  something  I  had  done  well,  or  I  would  be  called 
in  and  told  that  something  I  had  been  urging  had  been 
approved.     That  was  his  sense  of  discipline. 

The  Eye  of  Discipline 

In  an  organization,  discipline  arises  from  the  fact  that 
every  man  unconsciously  feels  that  there  is  an  eye  on  him, 


412 


THAT    LETTER    TO    HOOKER 


not  an  unfriendly,  unkindly  eye,  but  just  an  attentive 
look  in  his  direction.  It  may  contain  a  smile;  it  may  con- 
tain a  reproof  for  some;  it  may  glare  at  others,  but  it 
must  be  an  eye,  an  all-seeing  eye  that  is  felt  in  all  parts. 

The  sales  manager  of  a  great  electrical  company  makes 
a  practice  of  sending  his  men  at  frequent  but  irregular  in- 
tervals a  letter  calling  their  attention  to  something  out- 
side the  business.  On  one  occasion  he  sent  them  a  copy 
of  a  speech  on  salesmanship.  In  that  there  was  nothing 
unusual,  but  with  each  copy  went  a  brief  note  suggesting 
that  the  recipient  read  some  certain  section.  These  sec- 
tions varied  according  to  the  particular  man,  and  he  took 
the  time  and  trouble  to  mark  the  sections  in  the  book 
that  he  thought  would  be  particularly  suggestive  to  the 
particular  man  he  had  in  mind.  Sometimes  these  were 
suggestions  that  he  thought  the  man  needed.  Another 
time  he  would  mark  on  the  margin,  "This  sounds  like 
you,"  when  something  caught  his  mind  that  he  remem- 
bered the  salesman  to  have  said;  or  "Read  this  over; 
there's  a  point  in  it  for  you,"  and  so  on  down  the  line. 
Do  you  imagine  that  a  man  who  got  such  a  message  dis- 
missed it?  Deep  underneath  everything  else  the  thought 
came  to  him,  "That  man  Jones  is  constantly  thinking 
about  me.  He's  got  his  eye  on  me.  He  remembers  the 
things  I  say  and  the  things  I  do."  That  breeds  the 
sense  of  discipline. 

The  Discipline  of  Facts 

The  very  essence  of  efficiency  is  the  discipline  of  facts. 
If  we  do  not  recognize  a  fact  to  be  the  biggest  thing  in 
the  world,  if  we  do  not  recognize  that  a  fact  has  more 
power  than  a  man,  we  miss  the  whole  lesson  of  life,  and 
become  futile  kickers  against  the  pricks  of  circumstances, 
because  law  is  bigger  than  any  man  who  lives.     It  is  be- 


THE    ESSENTIALS    OF    DISCIPLINE 


413 


cause  the  big  captains  of  industry  have  recognized  that 
facts  and  laws,  which  they  spend  milHons  of  money  to 
find,  are  bigger  than  themselves,  and  that  it  is  by  working 
in  harmony  with  these  facts,  that  they  are  as  big  as  they 
are. 

The  things  that  the  captain  of  industry  works  with 
are  statistics;  he  runs  his  business  as  a  railroad  runs  its 
trains,  on  a  time-table  of  facts;  an  efficient  railroad  is  the 
perfection  of  discipline. 

Time,  money,  material,  and  men  are  the  four  factors 
which  dominate  a  business.  It  is  necessary,  therefore,  for 
a  man  to  discipline  himself  to  realize  that  even  if  he 
doesn't  like  the  gospel  of  efficiency,  it  is  bigger  than  he 
is.  Every  book  I  read,  every  speech  I  hear,  every  picture 
I  see,  every  thought  I  think — all  my  experiences  must 
react  in  favor  of  the  greatest  master  interest  of  my  life  if 
I  am  properly  disciplined  in  all  my  forces. 

The  Principles  of  Discipline 

I  trust  I  have  been  able  to  show  that  discipline  is 
elemental;  that  it  is  the  very  foundation  of  all  success; 
that  as  you  see  its  observance  in  any  business  or  life,  you 
find  the  measure  of  the  success  there.  Discipline  starts 
at  the  head  of  the  house;  as  he  fumbles,  so  fumbles  the 
team.  Where  you  have  carping  criticism  from  the  man- 
ager you  hear  sneers  from  the  clerks;  where  you  find  the 
Big  Stick  in  the  hands  of  the  manager  you  find  the  ham- 
mer in  the  hands  of  the  employe ;  discipline  is  mutuality 
and,  briefly  summarized,  must  work  through  and  by  the 
principles  we  have  been  discussing: 

First — The  employer  must  select  the  right  material 
for  employes;  and  the  clerk  must  select  the  right 
kind  of  a  boss,  because  "you  can't  make  a  silk  purse 
out  of  a  sow's  ear"  in  either  case. 


414  THAT     LETTER    TO     HOOKER 

Second — The  employer  must  pay  an  adequate  wao^e, 
and  the  employe  must  see  that  he  gets  it,  because 
business  is  co-operation  for  a  common  benefit;  both 
sides  must  work  to  a  common  end,  because  oneness 
of  all  the  energies  of  the  collective  minds,  souls,  and 
bodies  of  the  house  is  essential. 

Third — Both  must  give  to  the  uttermost  of  every 
talent,  emotion,  and  power  to  the  end  that  the  plan 
shall  be  worked,  the  policy  observed,  and  the  vision 
realized;  i.  e.,  they  must  be  loyal. 

Fourth — Both  must  work  on  the  basis  of  facts,  and 
must  discipline  their  minds  to  get  facts. 
■  Fifth — The  minds  of  both  must  be  discipHned  to  real- 
ize the  simple,  human  verity  that  no  man  can  ever 
know  all  about  anything,  no  matter  how  long  he 
lives,  and  that  the  immutable  law  of  change  makes 
it  necessary  for  him  to  arrange  his  work  so  that  all 
new  things  shall  come  to  him  in  their  proper  guise, 
that  he  may  wisely  anticipate  future  developments 
in  the  business  or  the  work  ahead  of  him. 

Sixth — Both  must  know  that  Service  in  which  both 
sides  of  any  agreement  get  a  fair  deal  is  the  only 
permanently  profitable  scheme  of  life  or  business. 

Seventh — Both  must  realize  in  their  daily  acts  that 
there  is  a  best  way  to  do  everything,  even  to  finding 
out  how  to  do  it. 

Eighth — Both  must  realize  that  Truth  is  the  greatest 
thing  in  the  world :  that  she  rules  all  things,  always. 
The  gospel  of  efficiency  is  Truth  working  through 
human  agencies.  It  can  profit  no  man  to  play  the 
game  on  any  other  basis. 

When  a  man  has  achieved  this  measure  of  conviction,  he 
will  have  the  very  soul  of  discipline  to  guide  him  towards  a 
realization  of  his  greatest  powers. 


PART  XI 


The  End  of  the  Rainbow 

Do  you  think,  my  son,  that  we  would  strive  so  hard  to 
and  the  end  of  the  rainhoiv  if  there  was  not  a  pot  of  gold 
there  f—Ou)  Fable. 


CHAPTER    XXXIV 

THE    BASIS    OF    WAGES 

Men  give  in  proportion  as  tliey  receive. 

— C.  E.  Knoeppel. 

Making  Men 

A  Thinker  and  a  Doer,  an  analyst  with  a  heart,  a  con- 
structionist with  a  vision,  a  man  with  a  plan,  is  F.  G. 
Athearn,  of  San  Francisco.  Ask  any  of  the  thousands  of 
men  on  the  Southern  Pacific  and  they  will  talk  with  you  of 
this  trainer  of  men  for  the  Harriman  Systems.  Some  time 
ag-o  Mr.  Athearn  described  the  work  of  his  department,* 
which  is  to  "supply  the  need  for  managers  and  superinten- 
dents," now  increasingly  prevalent  among  railroads.  I 
shall  quote  him  with  respect  only  to  the  rewards  phases  of 
his  work : 

"The  days  when  sons  follow  fathers  are  gone,"  he  said. 
"The  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  the  business  of  any  one  thing 
has  become  so  large  and  so  complex  that  a  man  may  spend 
a  lifetime  in  any  one  of  its  correlated  departments,  without 
ever  knowing  what  any  other  department  does,  or  how  it 
does  it.  The  army  and  navy  have  long  since  given  up  the 
hopes  of  obtaining  their  officers  from  the  ranks.  The  young 
men  for  our  military  schools  are  selected  competitively  and 
represent  the  flower  of  the  land.  We  cannot  depend  on 
men  rising  from  the  masses.  It  is  too  slow  and  too  un- 
certain a  process," 

In  other  words,  we  nuist  make  our  men ;  wc  cannot  wait 
for  them  to  grow.  We  cannot  depend  on  the  uncertain 
ability  to  catch  the  superior  man  we  need  when  he  emerges 


•  Before  the  Chicago  Association  of  Commerce,  Pecember,  1910, 


4i8  THE    END    OF    THE    RAINBOW 

from  the  mass  of  commonplace  men  in  our  employ.  He 
may  emerge  only  when  he  leaves  us  to  gain  his  greater 
chance  outside  our  organization.  We  must  organize  our- 
selves to  take  advantage  of  every  unit  of  brain  power  in 
ourselves  and  our  organization ;  we  must  take  no  chances 
with  our  investment  in  brains. 

The  Hope  of  Reward 

Right  or  wrong,  men  work  for  rewards.  That  reward 
may  lie  in  the  honor  of  being  called  the  President  of  the 
All-Star  Salesman's  Club;  it  may  be  the  satisfaction  of  an 
inner  ideal  when  a  man  knows  that  he  has  won  for  quality 
against  the  temptation  to  work  for  quantity;  it  may  be  for 
the  purpose  of  giving  Mary  and  the  boy  a  little  home  in  the 
country  or  a  trip  to  Europe;  it  may  be  the  satisfaction  of 
knowing  that  you  could  do  what  your  mind  had  set  as  a 
task  for  your  self-professed  ability;  it  may  be  for  the  pur- 
pose of  calling  oneself  a  millionaire,  but  the  reward  must 
be  there. 

You  must  know,  whatever  the  material  end,  that  you 
are  somebody  in  your  class ;  that  you  have  achieved  a  posi- 
tion in  the  mart ;  that  you  are  more  than  merely  enough  to 
satisfy  the  demands  of  the  day's  work;  this  is  the  source  of 
all  your  power  and  the  motive  for  all  your  effort.  For  our- 
selves we  must  achieve  something ;  for  our  business  we  must 
look  ahead  to  that  time  when  this  or  that  individual  man- 
power in  our  organization  will  be  consigned  to  Death's 
scrap  heap. 

The  University  of  Hard  Knocks 

Is  the  business  sprouting  superintendents  —  growing 
managers  of  its  own — or  is  it  going  to  depend  on  its  com- 
petitors being  fools  enough  not  to  know  a  good  man  and  let 
the  business  have  him  when  our  need  becomes  pressing? 


THE    BASIS    OF    WAGES  419 

"Your  office  is  not  what  it  should  be,  neither  is  your 
shop  or  your  drawing  room  if  it  leads  to  blind  alleys  from 
which  there  is  no  promotion  and  no  outlook.  You  must 
find  outlets,  or  the  equivalent,  for  capable  men  in  every 
department.  If  not  outlets  then  you  must  find  ways  in 
which  able  men  may  so  improve  their  work  that  they  will 
not  cease  to  grow,  expand,  and  become  more  able,  more 
valuable  to  the  company  and  to  themselves.  Railroads 
and  industrial  concerns  are  not  thinking  of  this  today ! 
Not  until  railroads  provide  proper  methods  of  recruiting 
for  all  departments  and  not  until  adequate  methods  of 
training  these  recruits  and  not  then  until  the  organizations 
are  prepared  to  receive  and  properly  provide  for  retaining 
competent,  able,  and  ambitious  young  men,  will  the  rail- 
roads begin  to  climb  out  of  the  personnel  difficulties  in 
which  they  are  now  submerged.  What  can  the  manage- 
ments of  our  railroads  be  thinking  of  to  overlook  the 
situation  and  this  opportunity?  When  will  they  wake 
up?"* 

This,  too,  is  a  problem  which  "works  itself  out  in  most 
plants."  We  cannot  hope  for  much  from  graduates  of  the 
University  of  Hard  Knocks.  If  such  dependence  be  our  at- 
titude, we  have  not  learned  our  lesson  well,  and  we  are 
trusting  too  blindly  that  "God  helps  those  who  help  them- 
selves." 

The  University  of  Hard  Knocks  is  a  great  institution, 
and  in  it,  the  process  of  elimination  has  separated  failures 
from  successes ;  and  its  course  has  been  a  good  one  for  the 
individual  of  surpassing  power  and  talent.  Society  has  paid 
the  big  price  of  his  tuition ;  for  economically,  the  University 
of  Hard  Knocks  has  been  run  at  a  tremendous  cost — many 
times  the  total  endowments  of  all  the  universities  of  learning 
in  the  world.  The  waste  has  been  tremendous ;  for  the  re- 
jected, the  down-and-outs,  the  inept,  the  failures,  are  mak- 
ing society  pay,  pay,  pay,  and  society  with  an  asinine  stu- 
pidity has  not  found  it  out. 

•  George  M.  Basford,  before  New  England  Railroad  Club,  Boston,  January, 
1913- 


420 


THE     END    OF    THE    RAINBOW 


Wages  and  Justice 

In  nothing  has  crooked  thinking  done  more  to  retard 
us  than  in  our  thinking  on  the  problem  of  rewards  to  the 
thinker  and  the  doer.  ''Let  the  law  of  supply  and  demand 
in  a  free  market  fix  the  rate,"  says  the  optimistic,  rule-of- 
thumb,  practical  man.  All  right,  but  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  a  free  market,  so  we  prick  this  bubble  of  reasoning  with 
the  bodkin  of  one  cold  fact.  The  brute  forces  of  capital  and 
labor  as  a  result  of  this  crooked  thinking  have  arrayed  their 
mere  money  of  capital  against  their  mere  strength  of  labor. 
They  have  defeated  themselves  and  each  other  in  the  attempt 
to  solve  the  problem  of  efficient  living,  i.  e.,  getting  more 
body,  soul  and  mind  satisfaction  out  of  life. 

Business  men  must  realize  that  as  managers  place  their 
whole  attention  on  money  profits,  employees  will  concen- 
trate their  wdiole  thought  on  money  wages.  The  lowering 
of  industrial  morals  begins,  as  usual,  in  the  directors'  room. 

The  big,  the  really  big,  men  of  individuality  and  vision 
in  business  are  now  trying  to  get  at  all  sides  of  the  question 
of  rewards,  to  get  at  the  justice  of  the  problem.  We  know 
that  justice  will  in  the  long  run  work  out  the  problem.  She 
always  has  and  will,  because  the  law  of  compensation,  of 
balance,  will  not  be  denied.  Our  men  of  education  know 
this,  and  with  more  spiritual  feeling  than  was  possible  ten 
years  ago,  are  facing  the  soul  and  mind  phases  of  what  has 
too  long  been  considered  a  merely  physical  question,  that  of 
wages.  They  are  realizing  that,  as  a  St.  Louis  manufac- 
turer said  to  me,  "Money  wages  must  be  sufficient  to  take 
care  of  the  physical  needs ;  wages  in  training  must  be  given 
that  the  men  may  prosper  in  mind;  and  the  heart  interest 
must  be  given  to  take  care  of  those  who,  by  long  and  faithful 
service,  and  efficient  effort,  have  earned  a  place  in  the  future 
of  the  firm." 

Mr.    George   W.    Perkins   in   his   profit-sharing,    stock- 


THE    BASIS    OF    WAGES 


421 


selling  plans  for  employes  of  the  United  States  Steel  Com- 
pany and  the  International  Harvester  Company ;  "Golden 
Rule"  Jones,  of  Toledo,  with  his  profit-sharing  plans;  the 
Filene  store  in  Boston  with  its  co-operative  methods ;  Henry 
Ford,  with  his  minimum  wages,  hours  of  work,  and  profit- 
shaHng  ideas,  big  and  little  alike,  show  that  they  realize 
that  the  average  daily  wage  system  alone  will  not  develop 
that  efificiency  which  comes  from  body,  soul,  and  mind  co- 
operating with  the  policy,  purpose,  and  opportunities  of  the 
business.  Left  to  his  own  devices,  and  the  light  of  his 
personal  experience,  the  average  manager  has  no  fact- 
founded  plan  by  which  to  test  the  methods  he  would  use  to 
determine  the  right  way  to  reward  his  helpers. 

The  rule-of-thumb  manager  endeavors  to  play  safe  by 
fighting  every  raise  of  salaries  or  wages  and,  by  doggedly 
standing  in  the  way  of  every  change  looking  towards  more 
money  for  the  workers,  thinks  he  is  conserving  his  trust. 
There  is  a  large  class  of  such  thinkers  banded  together  to 
fight  wage-scale  increase.  Labor-unionism  naturally  re- 
sulted. Then  both  went  to  war — a  brutal,  futile,  rabid, 
vicious,  bloody  war,  without  sense  or  ethics  on  either  side. 

Society  has  grown  tired  of  it.  What  is  right?  What 
are  just  rewards  for  the  Thinker,  the  Doer,  the  public? 

The  Thinker  wants  a  fair  reward  for  steering  the  busi- 
ness safely  past  Failure  to  Success.  The  Doer  wants  an 
adequate  reward  for  doing  the  work  skilfully  and  quickly. 
The  public  wants  service,  for  society  says  that  which  is  of 
no  use  to  society  is  a  waste  to  be  eliminated.  These  appear 
to  me  the  greater  principles  back  of  the  problem  of  rewards. 

Education  and  Business 

Men  like  Mr.  Athearn  are  hired  by  the  thinking  cor- 
poration managers  to  take  the  men  who  have  been  trained, 
as  college  men  frequently  are.  to  analyze,  to  test,  to  exam- 


422 


THE    END    OF    THE    RAINBOW 


ine,  to  be  suspicious  of  generalizations,  to  get  at  the 
truth,  and  to  give  them  the  experience  in  the  actual  work 
of  corporations  so  that  they  may  become  the  thinking  leaders 
of  skillful  men.  "We  must  take  men,"  said  Mr.  Athearn, 
"who  already  have  had  an  education  as  broad  as  the  land 
can  give.  We  must  look  to  our  colleges  to  produce  that 
sort  of  men.  I  am  fully  aware  of  the  danger  young  men 
from  college  fall  into;  they  think  they  know  it  all.  The 
college  can,  nevertheless,  give  the  broad,  preliminary  train- 
ing and  breadth  of  mind  which  is  essential,  leaving  for  each 
business  concern  to  establish  its  own  post-graduate  school  of 
business  administration." 

This  method  of  approaching  the  subject  has,  in  the  end, 
the  one  purpose  of  giving  an  adequate,  just  reward  to  the 
Thinker  and  Doer  and  the  Public.  Out  of  it  will  come 
principles  which  will  be  worked  into  methods  of  increasing 
efficiency  in  individual  cases.  The  leaven  that  has  been  in- 
troduced into  the  business  life  of  America  by  the  work  of 
the  hundreds  of  schools  and  colleges  since  '65,  is  slowly 
working  into  practical  affairs,  and  the  colleges  are  further- 
ing it  by  the  installation  of  specialized  business  curricula, 
such  as  that  of  the  Harvard  Graduate  School  of  Business 
Administration. 

The  Open  Mind 

Practical  business  is  realizing  the  necessity  for  a  broader 
vision,  an  educated,  discriminating  interpretation  of  public 
and  business  questions,  and  a  realization  upon  the  part  of  its 
managers  that  no  single  business  experience  comprehends 
all  valuable  experience.  Mr.  John  H.  Patterson  of  the 
National  Cash  Register  Company,  long  ago  laid  down  as 
his  principle  of  management,  "The  desire  for  change  is 
the  sign  of  safety."  It  is  the  same  principle  which 
prompted  Mr.  Frank  Munsey  to  tear  down  a  ten-story 


THE    BASIS    OF    WAGES 


423 


building  in  Baltimore,  and  to  put  up  one  larger  and  bet- 
ter equipped  that  efficiency  might  be  increased. 

This  open-minded  attitude  toward  rewards  is  vital.  Life 
is  change ;  it  is  evolution  from  lower  to  higher  forms,  from 
the  mastery  of  law  to  higher  law,  from  force  to  thinking  and 
then  to  ethics;  the  process  calls  for  the  holding  fast  of  all 
that  we  have  gained  of  mastery  in  the  past  while  we  get  a 
firm  grasp  of  the  new.  One  of  the  managers  of  a  great 
chain-store  in  this  country  recently  spent  seven  months  in 
Europe,  much  of  the  time  in  Great  Britain,  where  he  studied 
the  chain-store  systems  of  that  country,  some  of  which  have 
as  many  as  nine  hundred  branches.  He  came  back  realizing 
that  "Great  Britain  can  teach  us  a  lot  in  the  economics  of 
the  chain-store  idea."  That  fact  was  his  reward  for  open- 
mindedness. 

Recently,  Mr.  Sakuragi,  of  the  South  Manchuria  Rail- 
way Company,  while  discussing  the  individual  characteristics 
of  the  different  railway  systems  of  America,  gave  an  in- 
teresting viewpoint  of  the  methods  of  commercial  Japan. 
When  he  called  on  my  firm  he  had  been  in  this  country  for 
nearly  fourteen  months,  and  expected  to  spend  nearly  a 
year  more  studying  American  railroad  methods  with  a 
definite  program  of  what  he  wanted.  We  might  find  in  this 
a  suggestion  for  our  methods  of  studying  foreign  markets. 
Anyone  who  attended  the  Export  Convention*  held  at 
Washington  must  have  been  impressed  with  the  almost  ludi- 
crous ignorance  of  real  foreign  conditions,  displayed  by  the 
average  of  those  in  attendance. 

The  Southern  Pacific  System 

What  is  the  sole  objective  of  the  Southern  Pacific  Road 
in  installing  the  school  idea?  It  has  no  idea  of  doing  this 
work  for  philanthropic  reasons;  it  doesn't  do  it  because  it 

•  In   1912. 


424 


THE    END    OF    THE    RAINBOW 


loves  the  human  family.  It  does  it  because  it  finds  it  must 
train  men  to  be  valuable  to  the  road.  Think  what  a  reversal 
of  the  old  time  attitude  of  blaming  the  worker  for  not 
making  good.  This  great  corporation  is  willingly  paying 
men  to  take  a  three  and  a  half  year  course  of  instruction  in 
railroad  operation,  that  they  may  be  fitted  to  demand  more 
money  from  the  corporation. 

The  company  bears  this  expense  because  it  has  found 
that  it  can't  maintain  its  organization  at  highest  efficiency 
unless — 

First — It  gets  the  right  material  already  trained  to  a 
certain  point. 

Second — It  organizes  its  post-graduate  course  in  railroad 
operation,  so  that  the  men  will  be  prepared  for  promotion 
to  take  charge  of  its  departments. 

Third — It  pays  the  men  from  the  beginning  an  adequate 
reward  for  the  service  rendered. 

"At  the  very  start,"  Mr.  Athearn  says,  "they  are  paid  a 
regular  salary,  starting  in  at  $80.00  per  month,  and  grad- 
ually increasing  to  $100.00.  This  may  seem  like  a  high 
salary  to  pay  a  young  man  to  learn  a  business,  but  to  get 
the  right  kind  of  stuff,  men  who  are  in  demand  must  be 
secured,  and  they  must  be  paid."  Thus  this  railroad  has 
realized  the  necessity  of  having  a  school  for  officers,  where 
men  will  be  rewarded  for  going  through  a  set  system  of 
work,  moving  from  one  department  to  another,  through  the 
entire  organization.  As  Mr.  Athearn  says,  "The  catch-as- 
catch-can  plans  have  all  been  tried,  and  all  have  been  barren 
of  results.  Under  the  prearranged  plan,  w^hich  is  .called 
'The  Outline  of  Work  and  Reading  for  Students  in  Rail- 
road Operation,'  the  student  feels  that  he  is  going  some- 
where and  is  fairly  sure  of  arriving;  that  is  the  student's  re- 
ward for  the  effort." 


THE    BASIS    OF    WAGES 


425 


The  Game  and  Its  Rules 

In  this  way,  this  corporation  has  administered  another 
staggering  blow  to  the  idea  that  managers  are  "born  and 
not  made."  In  this  we  see  the  reahzation  that  successful 
railroad  officers  are  made,  just  as  Mr.  John  H.  Patterson 
realized  that  cash  register  salesmen  are  made.  The  com- 
pensation of  the  worker  in  such  a  system,  outside  of  the 
mere  dollars,  is  indicated  in  Mr.  Athearn's  statement : 
"Under  the  pre-arranged  plan,  the  student  really  feels  that 
he  is  going  somewhere  and  is  fairly  certain  of  arriving." 
That  is  the  vitally  important  thing.  There  is  compensation 
for  an  effort  when  you  realize  the  steps  you  are  taking 
towards  an  objective  you  have  set  yourself.  The  scientific 
organizer  thus  realizes  the  potency  of  that  law  of  human 
nature  which  gets  greatest  results  from  making  business  a 
game  with  definite  rules  and  rewards  for  merit. 

Do  not  let  us  give  that  word  "game"  a  sinister  meaning, 
as  some  who  object  to  its  use  have  done.  Business  is  a 
game  of  skill,  in  which  a  knowledge  of  its  rules,  with  the 
stamina  to  play  it  to  the  end,  must  win  the  greatest  rewards. 

Men  play  games  with  more  zest  than  they  run  machines. 
They  get  more  rewards  in  pleasure  and  satisfaction,  when 
the  drudgery  of  business  is  turned  into  a  game  of  skill  and 
eflfort. 

The  Economy  of  High  Wages 

The  sales  people  of  a  department  store,  working  against 
certain  standards  of  sales  set  by  the  skillful,  deliver  a  great 
deal  more  if  they  have  monthly  as  well  as  yearly  averages 
against  which  to  win.  It  has  been  proved  in  factory  work 
that  the  man  operating  a  machine  who  is  given  a  certain 
day's  pay  for  an  average  production,  and  when  he  falls 
below  that,  is  penalized,  yet  gets  a  comparatively  large 
bonus  if  he  makes  better  than  the  average,  is  the  man  who 


426  THE    END    OF    THE    RAINBOW 

is  endeavoring  at  all  times  to  get  the  greatest  possible  re- 
ward, because  he  knows  the  rules  of  the  game  and  wants 
to  win.  It  pays  the  employer  better  to  give  one  man  big 
rewards  for  big  results  than  to  pay  a  lot  of  men  little  wages 
for  the  same  total. 

The  British  merchant  and  manufacturer  operates  on  the 
theory  that  it  is  "a  patriotic  duty  to  keep  as  many  men  em- 
ployed as  we  possibly  can."  It  is  a  mere  truism  to  state 
that  a  yard  of  British  cloth  selling  for  three  shillings  in  the 
markets  of  the  world  in  competition  with  cloth  made  in 
America,  Germany,  and  France,  has  but  three  shillings  out 
of  which  all  labor,  material,  and  profits  on  the  investment 
must  be  realized.  If  it  takes  three  men  in  England,  two  in 
Germany,  two  and  one-half  in  France,  and  one  and  two-fifths 
in  America  to  make  that  yard  of  cloth  at  a  cost  for  labor  of 
twenty-nine  cents,  it  is  obvious  that  the  individual  American 
can  get  more  money  for  his  yard  than  his  British  brother. 
At  first,  this  seems  to  be  a  simple  statement.  But  the  con- 
sequences are  far-reaching;  the  British  workingman  gets 
his  lower  wage  for  making  that  yard  of  cloth,  because  in  his 
case  the  twenty-nine  cents  has  to  be  divided  by  three,  and  we 
find  that  he  doesn't  live  on  it.  As  a  result.  Great  Britain  has 
to  support  a  pauper  population  through  poor  rates  and  old 
age  pension  schemes.  So  that  out  of  the  total  amount  of 
money  she  gets  for  her  yard  of  cloth,  there  is  a  greater 
proportion  extracted  for  the  support  of  labor  than  is  true  in 
either  Germany,  France,  or  America.  There  is  no  reward 
for  British  methods  in  the  world's  market,  because  her  rules 
are  wrong. 

Who  Pays  Labor's  Bills? 

Is  it  not  inevitable  that  society,  which  permits  labor  to 
be  underpaid,  still  has  to  pay  labor's  bill  ?  The  ultimate  ad- 
justment comes  in  several  ways ;  by  excessive  taxation  for 


THE    BASIS    OF    WAGES 


427 


the  maintenance  of  the  paupers  and  the  inefficient,  through 
excessive  costs,  or  through  the  cruder  method  of  social 
revolution  with  its  inevitable  waste. 

Capital  and  labor  must  co-operate  to  determine  what 
are  the  adequate  rewards  due  both.  The  immediate  result 
may  not  be  apparent,  but  it  is  none  the  less  a  result  with 
which  the  world  must  reckon.  If  not  in  this,  the  gen- 
eration after  that  in  which  the  sweat-shop  takes  toll  of 
the  vigor,  vitality,  and  skill  of  a  generation,  the  sons  of 
our  proprietors  will  have  to  pay  for  the  maintenance  of 
degenerates.  Some  may  say  with  the  French  king,  "After 
me  the  deluge,"  yet  society  is  slowly  realizing  that  it 
cannot  afford  to  hasten  a  new  deluge  while  taking  care  of 
one  brought  on  by  a  past  generation. 

The  public  is  vitally  interested.  On  the  one  hand  we 
have  had  the  exploiting  capitalist  who  has  been  so  busy  in 
preparing  stock  and  bond  issues  that  he  has  had  no  time  to 
think  of  raising  efficiencies. 

We  are  curbing  him. 

On  the  other  hand  we  have  had  the  incompetent  worker 
who  prefers  to  be  incompetent,  who  indeed  has  banded  him- 
self with  his  kind  into  organizations,  and  by  strong-arm 
methods  has  intimidated  intelligent  workers  into  accepting 
the  idea  that  the  wealth  of  the  world  belongs  to  those  who 
can  take  it. 

The  money-grabber  absorbs  illegitimate  profits,  and  the 
drones  of  the  workshop  extort  payment  for  work  which  they 
do  not  perform. 

The  public  pays  for  the  work  it  never  gets,  as  well  as 
the  unearned  profit. 

Prices  Rise  With  Wages 

As  it  was  pointed  out  in  a  previous  Part.*   it  is  false 

•  Part  I. 


428  THE    END     OF    THE    RAINBOW 

economics  for  labor  to  think  that  it  can  raise  wages  without 
raising  prices.  In  such  a  condition  capital  always  has  the 
last  word. 

A  keen  observer  of  markets  and  industrial,  financial,  and 
commercial  tendencies*  recently  called  attention  to  some 
things  which  need  repeating. 

The  worker  must  learn  to  raise  his  efficiency  far  enough 
above  the  average  to  make  a  market  for  his  skill. 

So  long  as  the  worker  is  content  to  hold  himself  down  to 
the  slowest,  most  incapable,  most  unskilful  worker,  he  must 
be  content  to  pay  for  that  result  in  all  he  buys.  The  worker 
does  not  only  sell,  but  he  buys.  If  he  overcharges  for  the 
amount  of  the  work  and  skill  he  puts  into  his  work  he  must 
be  content  to  overpay  for  the  amount  of  work  and  skill  he 
buys  in  the  articles  made  by  his  fellows  of  the  working  class. 
This  creates  a  vicious  circle,  which  grows  smaller  and 
smaller.  It  is  unintelligent,  inept,  and  futile  to  think  that 
what  one  does  should  have  no  relation  to  what  one  gets.  Re- 
wards should  be  fixed  entirely  by  what  one  does.  In  fact 
they  should  be  scientifically  so  fixed. 

The  Broader  Creed 

The  uneducated  seem  to  think  that  rewards  have  no  basis 
except  in  the  wants  of  the  worker.  Men  will  have  to  learn 
that  they  cannot  pull  themselves  up  by  pulling  others  down. 
The  worker  can  climb  but  cannot  pull  himself  up.  The 
worker  will  prosper  just  so  long  as  he  serves  society.  The 
common  good  is  above  the  worker  or  the  capitalist. 

Workers  who  will  not  work,  who  are  content  with  soup- 
kitchen  rations,  and  who  talk  loudly  about  the  "rights  of 
labor,"  but  who  will  not  labor,  are  radically  wrong.  It  is  a 
distorted  idea  of  social  obligation  that  says  "Society  owes 
me  a  soft  snap,  but  I  owe  society  nothing."     Such  a  philOvS- 


*  "Futurr  of  the  WorkinR  Classes,"  by   Rodger  W.   Babson. 


THE    BASIS    OF    WAGES 


429 


ophy  is  not  even  socialism,  unless  I  misunderstand  that 
Joseph's  coat  of  economics  and  sociology. 

There  are  certain  fundamentals  of  economics,  of  the  law 
of  supply  and  demand,  which  must  be  understood  by  the 
worker,  or  the  company  must  suffer,  and  the  worker  will 
always  suffer  first. 

Just  as  quickly  as  the  plant  raises  its  efficiency  by  scien- 
tific means,  it  can  raise  wages  and  lower  costs.  It  can  then 
lower  prices,  too.  It  gains  a  steadier,  wider  market ;  and  the 
worker,  a  steadier  and  more  permanent  employment. 

The  present  policies  of  the  unions  have  always  had 
exactly  the  opposite  effect.  Only  education  vvill  drive  truth 
home. 

The  unions  should  take  this  idea  in  hand  and  teach  it  in 
their  schools.  There  are  more  than  enough  wants  for  the 
worker  to  satisfy.  It  is  a  narrow  and  specious  fallacy  that 
work  is  limited  by  anything  but  the  mind  of  the  worker. 

Just  as  it  is  more  difficult  to  sell  than  to  produce,  and 
just  as  price  and  service  are  the  universal  solvents  of  the 
problem  of  selling,  so  anything  that  makes  it  possible  for 
the  worker  to  lessen  price,  means  a  growing  market  with 
greater  work,  opportunities,  wages,  and  rewards.  There  is 
no  supply  of  gold  out  of  which  the  drone  can  be  paid  save 
at  the  expense  of  the  worker.  It  is  by  efficiency,  with  its 
growth  in  skill,  power  of  thought,  reverence  for  the  truth, 
gain  in  self-control,  health,  high  ideals,  concentration,  and 
grasp  of  social  and  political  economy,  that  the  worker  will 
find  his  uplift,  his  greater  rewards. 

Capital  and  labor  must  join  hands  for  that  efficiency. 

In  the  present  trend  of  economic  strife  lie  dynamite, 
prison,  bitterness,  hate,  inefficiency,  and  even  death  for  a 
slight  temporary  gain,  due  more  to  the  rising  tide  of  me- 
chanical efficiency  than  to  any  of  the  benefits  to  be  derived 
from  unionism, 


430 


THE    END     OF    THE    RAINBOW 


The  Gold  in  the  Pot 

The  simple  fact  is  that  the  pot  at  the  end  of  the  rain- 
bow contains  only  so  much  gold  as  we  may  take  to  it. 
Society  is  therefore  interested  in  seeing  that  every  man  gets 
just  compensation  for  his  labor;  in  order,  for  one  thing,  that 
he  may  be  encouraged  to  labor ;  in  order  that  he  may  be  able 
to  support  himself,  for  another  thing;  and,  finally,  because 
it  has  been  found  necessary  that  a  man  should  have  adequate 
rewards  that  he  may  be  kept  at  top  efficiency  for  the  common 
as  well  as  the  individual  good.  The  thing  that  you  and  I 
are  interested  in,  is  the  method  by  which  this  may  be  ac- 
complished. 

The  Ends  of  Efficiency 

The  whole  process  of  scientific  management,  and, 
therefore,  the  whole  gospel  of  efficiency,  comes  down  to 
this  simple  threefold  end  and  purpose : 

First — To  make  an  adequate  return  to  society  for  the 
protection  afforded  by  its  laws  and  the  franchise  by 
which  we  operate  under  its  influence  and  through 
its  machinery. 

Second — To  give  to  the  worker  a  living  wage  with  an 
incentive  to  better  living. 

Third — To  give  to  the  employer  just  compensation  for 
his  time  and  effort  and  for  the  money  he  risks. 

Efficiency  and  the  Worker 

Mr.  Harrington  Emerson,  in  an  address,*  said :  "The 
basis  of  scientific  efficiency  as  applied  to  management  is  as 
follows : 

"First — It  selects  men  who  will  find  pleasure  and  delight 
in  their  work. 


•  "Justice,    Common    Sense,    and    the    Pay-Roil,"    before    the    National    Civic 
Fefleration,   January,    1911. 


THE    BASIS    OF    WAGES 


431 


"Second — It  guarantees  to  each  employe  a  basic  rate 
of  wages. 

"Third — It  gives  them  higher  pay  from  year  to  year. 

"Fourth — It  pensions  them  at  the  end  of  a  certain  term 
in  service. 

"Fifth — It  gives  them  many  opportunities  for  promotion. 

"Sixth — It  estabhshes  scientifically  the  standards  of  cost 
and  puts  it  up  to  the  manager  to  eliminate  the  losses 
and  v^'aste  due  to  most  of  the  elements. 

"Seventh — It  gives  a  graduated  efficiency-reward  to 
every  worker,  from  apprentice  boy  up  to  the  Presi- 
dent." 


CHAPTER    XXXV 

THE    WAGE    PLAN 

It  is  not  the  amount  of  the  wage  paid  to  labor  which 
determines  the  fairness  of  the  wage.  It  is  the  proportion 
which  that  wage  holds  to  the  profits  of  the  other  factors 
in  the  corporate  organization,  the  compensation  of  the  man- 
agement, and  the  profits  of  the  shareholders. 

— George  W.  Perkins. 

The  Wage  Problem 

Expert  and  trained  minds  have  been  at  work  on  the  prob- 
lem of  wages  in  the  factories  and  the  crafts,  but  few  have 
given  consideration  to  that  great  class  of  workers  in  the 
offices,  the  sales  forces,  and  the  executive  end  of  business. 
The  need  is  daily  more  pressing  in  these  departments,  as 
Mr.  Athearn's  testimony  would  indicate. 

Fundamentally,  there  are  but  two  ways  of  paying  men 
for  their  day's  work ;  paying  them  according  to  the  hours 
they  give  you — the  day  wage  system ;  or  paying  them  for 
each  unit  of  their  production,  whether  making  a  sale  of  a 
typewriter  or  addressing  an  envelope — the  piece-work  sys- 
tem. The  problem  is  to  take  these  two  things  and  to  add  to 
them  such  concrete  rewards  as  your  practical  psychology 
may  suggest,  that  a  man  may  apply  his  whole  productive 
energy  to  giving  you  the  most  desirable  result. 

Wage  Systems 

Applicable  to  either  of  these  two  methods  of  measuring 
wages;  i.  e.,  time-measure,  or  the  production-measure,  are 
three  systems  of  payment. 

First — A  fixed  salary.    Generally  fixed  by  the  necessities 

432 


THE    WAGE    PLAN 


433 


of  the  business  and  increased  only  by  the  arbitrary 
system  of  periodical  raises;  or,  by  the  vicious  system 
of  waiting  until  the  worker  "strikes  for  a  raise,"  with 
the  manager  depreciating  and  the  worker  magnifying 
the  value  of  the  service ;  or,  by  the  worker  spending 
the  necessary  time  to  find  a  better  offer  with  which  to 
"club"  a  raise  out  of  a  chronically  reluctant  manager. 
Of  course  neither  of  the  parties  really  knows  what  the 
true  value  of  the  service  is. 

Second — Salary  and  a  bonus.  If  bonus  is  fixed  on  a  fair 
understanding  of  the  true  value  of  the  work  neces- 
sary to  gain  it,  and  the  salary  is  a  fair  pay  for  the 
average  required,  this  is  the  best  method  of  paying 
wages.  There  are  three  methods  of  operating  the 
bonus  system : 

a — One  plan  is  to  average,  for  instance,  the  old  records 
for  addressing  a  thousand  envelopes  from  cards,  and 
then  dividing  the  value  of  the  time  saved  between  the 
girl  and  the  house.  This  is  not  scientific,  and  the  pro- 
prietor tries  too  often  to  raise  his  averages,  always 
lowering  efficiency  through  his  lack  of  foresight.  This 
is  the  "Halsey  System,"  as  it  is  known  in  factory 
work. 

b — Another  plan  makes  a  scientific  study  of  the  time  re- 
quired to  address  the  thousand  envelopes  from  cards, 
and  determines  the  best  way  to  do  the  work  in  the 
shortest  time,  instructs  the  girls  how  to  do  it  in  this 
way,  and  then  sets  the  task  and  pays  a  bonus  for  beat- 
ing the  task,  which  must  be  reasonable  though  it  re- 
quires special  effort.  This  is  a  rough  statement  of 
the  "Gantt  bonus  plan."* 

c — Another  plan  is  the  "Emerson  Efficiency  System,"! 

•  Work,  Wages,  and  Profits,  by  H.  L.  Gantt. 

t  Twelve   Principles   of    Efficiency,   by   Harrington    Emerson. 


434 


THE    END    OF    THE    RAINBOW 


which  scientifically  determines  the  best  way  to  do  a 
thing,  then  standardizes  the  time  for  doing  work  by 
past  performances  judged  in  the  light  of  new  proc- 
esses; this  information  fixes  the  task.     It  grants  a 
bonus  for  doing  loo  per  cent  of  the  task  right.    If  the 
task  is  to  write  iioo  envelopes  in  a  day  of  nine  hours, 
and  it  is  done,  the  worker  gets  a  bonus  of  say,  20  per 
cent;  if  she  beats  it  by  an  hour,  she  gets  the  value  of 
all  the  time  she  saves  and  the  bonus,  too.    The  records 
are  kept  by  the  month  so  as  to  get  a  greater  average 
of  efficiency,  and  preventing  the  loafing  that  would 
otherwise  result. 
While  I  do  not  attempt  to  go  into  detail  here  as  to 
methods  of  application,  yet  a  word  as  to  the  bonus  payments 
under  the  Emerson  plan  is  not  out  of  place  by  way  of  illus- 
tration. 

Mr.  C.  E.  Knoeppel  gives  an  excellent  illustration  in  one 
of  his  lectures  :* 

The  bonus  scale  is  as  follows : 

67  per  cent  efficiency,  no  bonus 
70    "       "  "  Yz  per  cent 

80    "       "       .      "  4    "      " 

90    "       "  "  10    "       " 

100    "      "  "  20    "      " 

Each  one  per  cent  above  100  per  cent  efficiency  is 
rewarded  by  i  per  cent  in  bonus,  which  is  equivalent  to 
paying  the  man  for  all  the  time  he  saves. 

Such  methods  of  payment  call  for  careful  scientific 
study  of  the  work.  Such  concerns  as  the  Simmons  Hard- 
ware Company,  of  St.  Louis,  put  cyclometers  on  their 
typewriters  in  order  to  find  the  number  of  times  the  oper- 
ator touched  the  keys,  and  computed  the  rewards  on  a 
basis  of  work  done.     Carried  into  of^ce  work  for  instance, 


The  Psychology  and  Ethics  of  Wage  Payment,  by  C.   E.   Knoeppel. 


THE    WAGE    PLAN 


435 


accountants  will  come  to  realize  that  much  of  their  figur- 
ing is  purely  machine  work;  for  handling  so  many  thou- 
sand figures  a  day,  as  a  screw  machine  handles  so  many 
screws,  calls  for  machines  to  handle  the  work  at  a  saving 
of  a  large  percentage  of  the  time.  The  railroads  might 
save  tremendous  sums  by  changing  their  attitude  to- 
wards labor-saving  office  machinery  and  by  bringing  to 
bear  on  the  work  of  their  enormous  figure-factories  the 
expert  experience  of  men  who  specialize  on  the  shorten- 
ing of  such  labor. 

Third — Profit-sharing.  Best  for  heads  of  departments 
and  managers.  The  workingman  is  rarely  a  "good 
sport";  he  wants  to  win  all  the  time,  is  rarely  will- 
ing to  sacrifice  any  holidays  or  extra  pay,  and 
doesn't  want  to  "play"  if  there  should  be  no  profits. 

No  thoroughly  satisfactory  system  has  been  worked 
out  for  a  profit-sharing  system.  Giving  employes  blocks 
of  stock  at  less  than  market  price,  as  is  done  by  the  United 
States  Steel  Corporation,  the  International  Harvester 
Company,  the  Union  Switch  &  Signal  Company,  some  of 
the  pubHc  service  corporations,  the  Procter  &  Gamble 
Company,  and  various  other  companies,  has  not  worked 
out  to  the  entire  satisfaction  of  either  worker  or  company. 

Careful  thinking  men  agree  that  wages  can  not  ade- 
quately pay  for  the  services  of  steady,  loyal,  efficient 
workers.  Each  man  has  put  something  into  the  com- 
pany's stock  of  good  will,  prestige,  and  prosperity  which 
he  does  not  get  back  in  wages,  and  in  which  he  never 
shares  to  any  appreciable  extent. 

Profit-sharing  plans  have  been  inaugurated  to  over- 
come that.  Most  of  them  have  been  badly  conceived, 
and  many  others  were  mere  devices  of  even  questionable 
benefit  to  the  worker — the  shadow,  not  the  reality. 


436  THE    END    OF    THE    RAINBOW 

In  most  profit-sharing  schemes  men  have  paid  for  their 
shares,  and  generally  have  had  a  penalty  exacted  if  they 
quitted  the  company.  The  shares  were  granted  as  a  favor 
and  not  as  a  right,  and  therefore  the  plan  did  not  attain 
its  object. 

As  Carl  H.  Fast,  a  specialist  in  profit-sharing  plans, 
said  about  the  work  of  Andrew  Carnegie  and  John  D. 
Rockefeller,  with  their  methods  of  distribution  of  books 
and  colleges  and  medicines,  "What  we  need  is  a  logical 
step  of  prevention,  not  a  maudlin  measure  of  alleviation." 

Mr.  Fast  believes  that  good-will,  if  capitalized,  should 
have  one-half  of  the  stock  set  aside  for  the  workers  who 
are  mainly  responsible  for  the  good-will.  This  stock  will 
be  placed  in  trust  for  all  the  wage-workers  in  the  business. 

This  is  at  bottom  the  device  used  by  the  maker  of  a 
low-priced  automobile,  who  created  so  great  a  stir  by 
fixing  a  minimum  of  higher  wages,  shorter  hours  of  labor, 
and  greater  profit-sharing  than  had  been  done  before. 

I  want  to  quote  here  from  "Profit  Sharing  Plan  of 
the  Ford  Motor  Company,"  issued  by  the  company,  and 
therefore,  containing  an  authoritative  expression  of  the 
purposes  and  effects  of  the  plan: 

"Man  is  largely  a  creature  of  environment.  His  inter- 
est in  his  work,  his  efficiency  at  his  work,  and  his  loyalty 
toward  his  employer  depend  largely  upon  his  surround- 
ings during  working  hours.     *    ♦    ♦ 

The  Old  Way 

"A  little  over  a  year  ago,  the  system  of  employing  men 
was  the  same  old  moss-backed  affair  that  now  obtains  in 
most  shops.  A  man  was  hired  by  the  employment  office 
and  turned  over  to  the  tender  mercies  of  the  foreman  of 
a  department.  The  foreman  could  advance  him,  pass  him 
by,  or  discharge  him.  The  man's  future  with  the  Ford 
Motor  Company  depended  almost  entirely  upon  the  good- 
will of  his  immediate  superior. 

"The  number  of  so-called  'five-day'  men  under  the  old 


THE    WAGE    PLAN 

system  was  large.     A  'five-day'  man  is  a  transient  who 
works  but  a  week  or  two  in  a  place  and  then  drifts  on. 

"The  expense  of  hiring  men  is  considerable.  And  it  is 
the  more  oppressive  because  it  is  an  unproductive  outlay. 
It  has  been  estimated  that  to  hire  a  man  and  deliver  him 
to  the  department  where  he  is  to  be  employed  consumes 
approximately  two  hours  and  ten  minutes.  On  the  basis 
of  thirty  cents  per  hour,  this  is  an  expenditure  of  sixty- 
five  cents.  If  5000  men  were  hired  in  one  month  this 
would  be  an  expenditure  of  $3250,  or  equivalent  to  a  yearly 
cost  of  nearly  $40,000. 

The  Proposed  Solution 

"The  problem,  then,  was  two-fold :  how  to  interest  men 
in  their  work  by  giving  them  an  incentive  to  be  permanent, 
and  how  to  treat  them  after  they  became  permanent  so 
that  each  would  receive  individual  consideration. 

"Experts  were  sent  to  study  the  way  men  are  handled 
in  other  shops  employing  15,000  or  more.  System  after 
system  was  gone  over  carefully,  but  none  was  found 
superior  to  the  one  already  in  use  at  the  Ford  factory. 

"The  experts  returned  thoroughly  convinced  that  they 
must  solve  their  own  problem  in  their  own  way. 

"Accordingly,   a   skill-wage   classification   was   worked 

out  from  a  general  survey  by  the  following  considerations : 

"First — Justice  as  against  discrimination  for  all  employes 

"Second — The  reduction  to  a  minimum  number  of  all 

the  different  rates  of  wages  paid 
"Third — The    establishment    of    a    well-regulated,    sys- 
tematic schedule   for   increasing   wages   of  individual 
employes  by  certain  fixed  amounts 
"Fourth — The  classifications  of  all  employes  according 

to  their  skill 
"Fifth — A    classification    according    to    the    term    of 
service.    ♦    *    * 

The  Ford  Investigation 

"Under  an  able  director  a  corps  of  approximately  one 
hundred  investigators  have  been  collecting  the  important 
facts  concerning  every  employe,  so  the  company  may  de- 
termine just  what  is  the  square  thing  to  do  in  every  in- 
dividual case. 

"The    investigators    were    mostly    recruited    from    the 


437 


438  THE    END    OF    THE    RAINBOW 

ranks  of  Ford  employes,  and  were  known  to  possess  those 
qualities  which  are  most  necessary  for  work  of  this  char- 
acter. Some  were  hired  from  outside — doctors,  lawyers, 
and  well-educated  men  who  were  known  to  have  hard 
sense  and  ability  to  understand  men  and  conditions. 

"Each  of  these  investigators  is  furnished  an  interpreter, 
a  car,  and  a  driver.  He  spends  his  entire  time  going  from 
one  place  to  another  learning  all  he  can  about  the  men 
whom  he  is  asked  to  investigate.  He  finds  out  how  they 
live,  what  the  conditions  are  in  their  homes,  how  they 
spend  their  evenings,  what  recreations  they  indulge  in, 
how  much  money  they  have  saved,  how  much  they  send 
abroad,  how  many  persons  are  dependent  upon  them,  and, 
in  fact,  everything  possible  that  will  aid  in  the  smallest 
way  to  determine  whether  they  are  to  receive  a  share  of 
the  Ford  profits. 

"As  a  concrete  illustration  of  what  the  investigators 
are  attempting  to  learn,  concerning  the  men,  one  of  the 
instruction  sheets  issued  to  them  is  here  quoted : 

"  'To  Investigators — The  salient  facts  to  ascertain 
about  the  three  classes  into  which  we  have  divided  our 
men  are  noted  below.  Understand  that  the  lack  of  positive 
information  withholds  all  benefits  from  employes  until  all 
of  the  facts  in  each  individual  case  have  been  ascertained. 

"  'Married  Men — We  must  have  such  information  as 
will  assure  us  through  you  that  a  man  is  married  and  is 
living  with  his  wife.  Use  all  the  thought  and  ingenuity 
at  your  command  to  get  this  information  positively.  We 
also  must  know  about  the  man's  habits. 

"  'Single  Men  Over  22 — Granting  the  division  of  the 
profits  to  them  is  based  entirely  upon  their  being  "proven" 
thrifty.  We  must  know  through  you  positively  as  to  the 
conduct  of  employes  outside  of  business,  the  extent  of 
their  indulgences  that  make  for  good  or  bad  manhood. 

"  'Single  Men  Under  22 — We  want  to  ascertain  posi- 
tively whether  or  not  these  young  men  have  anyone  de- 
pendent upon  them,  and  whom,  and  to  what  extent.  Verify 
their  ages  positively.  In  case  of  conflict  between  the 
office  records  and  the  man's  statements  of  his  age,  please 
give  us  your  best  judgment,  if  you  cannot  obtain  tangible 
proof. 

"  'General — Please  throw  into  the  investigation  of  each 
case  a  deep,  personal  interest,  and  state  as  briefly  and 
concisely  as  you  can  all  of  the  facts  and  features  necessary 


THE    WAGE    PLAN 

for  well-rounded  judgment.  The  honesty  of  a  man  in 
makmg  frank  statements,  and  the  home  conditions  par- 
ticularly, are  of  vital  importance.  Get  as  much  informa- 
tion as  you  can  in  each  case  to  cover  the  points  gone  over 
m  talks  and  outlines  to  you.  Please  remember  that  we 
want  the  exact  truth  on  all  phases  of  the  situation  rather 
than  quick  returns.'     *     *     * 

A  Permanent  Force 

"It  has  been  said  that  this  plan  had  as  its  object  the 
elimination  of  so-called  floaters,  that  it  was  hoped  to  make 
each  Ford  worker  a  permanent  member  of  the  organiza- 
tion. And  It  has  been  pointed  out  that  this  was  to  be 
accomplished  by  making  each  man  satisfied  with  his  job  by 
giving  him  the  squarest  of  square  deals. 

"Now,  let's  see  how  the  thing  actually  worked  out  At 
the  end  of  one  month's  trial  a  comparison  was  made  with 
the  month  of  December,  1912,  a  typical  month  under  the 
old  system.     Here  is  the  comparison : 

Tj..       ,  Dec,  1912     Oct.,  1913 

Five-day   men ^^^  '^^ 

Men  discharged 776  \ 

Men  quitting ,0^  ^^, 

Men  laid  off ;.; ^  f 

l^'^^f^-^----- 5678  17^ 

Gam  for  month 856  945 

"The  above  table  is  conclusive  testimony  that  it  pays 
to  take  a  personal  interest  in  an  employe  and  that  every 
employe  appreciates  and  will  respond  to  a  square  deal 

Notice  how  the  floaters  disappeared.  In  the  one 
month  they  were  more  than  three  thousand  in  number 
in  the  other  they  had  fallen  to  a  little  over  three  hundred 
Is  this  not  evidence  that  the  men  have  become  permanent? 
Another  significant  comparison  is  that  pertaining  to 
the  number  of  men  discharged.  Notice  the  shrinkage  from 
776  in  the  one  month  to  137  in  the  other.  This  figure 
shows  conclusively  that  many  men  who  were  formerly 
discharged  as  inefficient  were  merely  misfits,  and  that 
under  the  new  system  when  given  a  second  chance  to 
make  good  ma  line  of  work  to  which  they  were  adapted 
they  proved  themselves  efiicient. 

"It  has  been  said  that  all  this  preparation  had  been 


439 


440 


THE    END    OF    THE    RAINBOW 

made  months  before  Henry  Ford  and  officials  of  the  com- 
pany made  the  profit-sharing  announcement.     *    *     * 


How  the  System  Works 

"The  plan  was  placed  under  the  strictest  supervision. 
The  right  to  discharge  was  taken  from  the  foreman,  but 
the  foreman  still  retained  the  right  to  transfer  any  man 
in  his  department,  if  such  action  served  the  best  interests 
of  the  company.  What  might  be  termed  a  court  of  in- 
quiry was  created  in  connection  with  the  employment 
office,  and  now,  if  a  man  proves  unsatisfactory  in  one  de- 
partment, instead  of  discharging  him,  the  foreman  sends 
him  back  to  the  employment  office,  where  he  is  questioned 
by  this  'court'  Perhaps  he  is  a  moulder,  who  for  the 
sake  of  getting  work  of  any  kind  accepted  a  place  as  a 
machine  hand.  The  worker  is  given  another  trial  in  the 
department  where  it  is  determined  he  will  have  the  best 
chance  of  making  'good.'  This  system  has  done  away 
almost  entirely  with  'square  pegs  in  round  holes.' 

"Another  adjunct  to  the  system  that  has  had  no  little 
effect  in  making  it  a  success  is  the  individual  supervision 
that  every  employe  receives,  which  itself  has  been  reduced 
to  a  system.  On  the  time  card  of  each  employe  is  kept 
his  record,  to  what  class  he  belongs,  etc.  This  grading  is 
checked  over  every  two  weeks  at  the  time  office,  and  if 
a  man  is  found  to  have  been  'standing  still'  for  any  great 
period  his  case  is  immediately  investigated.  This  insures 
a  square  deal  to  a  good  workman  who  happens  to  be  un- 
popular with  his  foreman ;  it  insures  a  square  deal  to  all. 

"Not  only  does  it  protect  the  men,  keep  them  from 
being  overlooked  or  imposed  upon  by  the  foreman,  but 
it  checks  up  the  foremen  themselves  and  keeps  them  alive 
to  their  duties  and  responsibilities. 

"The  way  a  beginner  is  taken  care  of  is  a  fair  example 
of  how  this  plan  works  out.  Suppose  a  man  begins  work 
in  Class  D-3.  He  is  a  beginning  helper.  After  he  has 
drawn  three  pays,  at  the  end  of  six  weeks,  if  he  has  not 
advanced,  he  is  investigated. 

"'Why  hasn't  C.  Jones  been  raised?'  his  foreman  is 
asked. 

"T  just  overlooked  him,'  the  foreman  replies. 

"Jones'  card  is  immediately  corrected  so  that  he  is 
promoted  into  Class  D-2. 

"On  the  other  hand,  if  the  foreman  says  Jones  is  in- 


THE    WAGE    PLAN 

efficient  and  doesn't  deserve  a  promotion,  the  foreman 
himself  is  criticized  for  allowing  an  inefficient  man  to 
lumber  up  his  department  for  so  long  a  time. 

"  'You  should  have  been  able  to  tell  in  less  than  six 
weeks  whether  Jones  is  efficient,'  the  foreman  is  admon- 
ished. 

"Under  the  system  a  workman  knows  absolutely  that 
he  will  be  raised  if  he  makes  good,  and  just  how  much  that 
raise  will  be.  He  has  an  incentive  to  do  the  best  work  he 
knows  how. 

"But  what  is  done  for  those  who  have  reached  their 
maximum  efficiency  ?  What  incentive  have  these  to  be  per- 
manent? It  is  considered  that  when  a  man  has  worked 
on  one  job,  has  specialized  on  one  piece  of  work  as  Ford 
employes  do,  for  a  period  of  two  years,  he  has  reached  his 
maximum  efficiency  at  that  task.  So  after  a  man  has  been 
an  employe  of  the  company  two  years  he  is  given  a  cer- 
tain bonus  every  year  over  and  above  his  wages  as  a  re- 
ward for  faithful  and  continuous  service. 

"For  a  standard  with  which  to  compare  the  individual 
skill  of  each  operator  the  established  shop  rate  of  the  plant 
was  taken.  This  shop  rate  for  any  particular  operation  is 
derived  from  the  machine  production  as  rated  by  the  man- 
ufacturer less  a  percentage  deduction  for  the  human  ele- 
ment and  the  necessary  stoppages  of  the  machine.  For 
each  operation  in  the  shop  the  human  equation  has  been 
based  on  the  best  possible  production  of  a  skilled  employe 
determined  by  actual  trial.  Comparing  the  production  of 
any  employe,  in  making  this  survey,  with  the  shop  rate, 
it  was  possible  to  place  his  skill  relatively  in  the  scale.  It 
was  determined  that  all  the  shop  employes  could  be  classi- 
fied as  to  occupation  in  six  general  divisions:  (a)  Me- 
chanics and  Sub-Foremen;  (b)  Skilled  Operators;  (c)  Op- 
erators; (d)  Helpers;  (e)  Laborers;  and  a  special  class 
composed  of  women,  messengers,  etc. 

"Right  here  it  is  interesting  to  know  that  previous  to 
this  classification  there  were  forty-eight  different  rates 
of  pay  in  the  factory. 

"Then  it  was  decided  to  subdivide  each  of  these  six 
major  classes  into  three,  according  to  proficiency  in  that 
class. 

"The  subdivisions  are:  (i)  first-class  workmen;  (2) 
men  of  average  ability;   (3)  beginners. 

"Thus  a  man  rated  as  a-i   would  be  a  first-class  me- 


441 


442 


THE    END    OF    THE    RAINBOW 

chanic,  while  a  man  rated  as  d-3  would  be  a  helper  and  a 
beginner." 


I  do  not  cite  this  plan  as  a  perfect  solution  of  the 
vexed  problem  of  giving  the  worker  his  share — a  problem 
which  is  one  of  the  most  pressing  now  before  business 
men;  and  hence  the  minds  of  our  best  managers  are  busy 
with  the  problem  of  getting  some  equitable  and  peace- 
promoting  solution. 

The  matter  of  pensions,  sick  benefits,  and  life  insur- 
ance has  long  been  recognized  as  an  economic  and  not 
entirely  an  individual  problem. 

The  man  of  1875  may  say  that  "the  worker  should  be 
foresighted  enough  to  take  care  of  his  own  old  age." 

On  a  basis  of  good  wages,  yes. 

But  he  has  not  been  educated  to  be  thrifty.  Our  very 
democratic  form  of  education  suggests  that  America  is 
the  land  of  opportunity.  We  are  a  liberal  people.  We 
stand  every  tub  on  its  own  bottom,  and  we  are  proud  that 
our  particular  tub  stands  so. 

We  have  been  improvident  with  our  national  re- 
sources; is  it  any  wonder  that  as  a  nation  we  should  in- 
dividually be  spendthrift,  and  "let  tomorrow  take  care  of 
itself"? 

Provident  Plan  of  the  American  Telephone  &  Telegraph 

The  larger  corporations  are  meeting  the  issue  in  the 
spirit  of  the  American  Telegraph  &  Telephone  Company. 
In  the  announcement  embracing  a  pension,  a  benefit  and 
life  insurance  plan,  which  covers  not  only  the  larger  cor- 
porations but  the  Western  Union  Telegraph  Company 
and  the  Western  Electric  Company  as  well,  President 
Theodore  N.   Vail  said: 

"It  affords  me  much  pleasure  to  announce  that  the  pro- 
visional pension  plan  has  been  replaced  by  a  permanent  plan 


THE    WAGE    PLAN 

providing  not  only  for  pensions,  but  also  for  sickness, 
accident  disability,  and  for  life  insurance,  and  that  the  com- 
pany has  set  aside  a  liberal  amount  for  the  establishment 
of  an  employes'  benefit  fund  from  which,  beginning  January 
I,  1913,  such  benefits  will  be  paid. 

"Briefly,  the  plan  provides  for  a  pension  of  1%  of  the 
average  annual  pay  during  the  ten  years  next  preceding 
retirement,  for  each  year  of  continuous  service,  with  a 
minimum    of   $20   per    month   to   be   paid    the    following: 

First — On  application  of  employe  or  in  the  discretion 
of  the  company,  to  all  male  employes  60  years  and  to 
all  female  employes  55  years  of  age  who  have  been 
20  or  more  years  in  the  service. 

Second — In  the  discretion  of  the  company,  to  any  em- 
ploye whose  term  of  employment  has  been  30  or  more 
years. 

Third — In  the  discretion  of  the  company,  to  any  male 
employe  aged  55,  or  female  employe  aged  50,  whose 
term  of  employment  has  been  25  or  more  years. 

"For  disability  due  to  accidental  injury  incurred  during 
employment  and  in  performance  of  work  for  the  company, 
full  pay  for  13  weeks  and  half  pay  until  able  to  earn  a 
livelihood  or  for  the  remainder  of  disability  not  exceeding 
in  either  case  6  years  in  all. 

"For  disability  due  to  sickness  or  accidental  injury  dur- 
ing employment  while  not  in  the  performance  of  work 
for  the  company,  as  follows : 

a — If  term  of  employment  is  10  or  more  years,  full 
pay  for  13  weeks  and  half  pay  for  39  weeks. 

b — If  term  of  employment  is  5  to  10  years,  full  pay 
for  13  weeks,  and  half  pay  for  13  weeks. 

c — If  term  of  employment  is  2  to  5  years,  full  pay  for 
four  weeks,  and  half  pay  for  nine  weeks. 

"These  benefits  begin  after  seven  days*  absence  on  ac- 
count of  sickness.  All  employes  having  relatives  dependent 
on  them  will  be  entitled  to  insurance  against  death  by  acci- 
dent occurring  in,  and  due  to,  the  performance  of  work 
for  the  company,  in  the  sum  of  3  years'  wages,  not  in 
excess  of  a  total  of  $5000,  payable  to  their  dependent  rela- 
tives. 

"All  employes  having  relatives  dependent  on  them  and 
who  have  been  5  years  in  the  service  will  be  entitled  to 


443 


444  THE    END    OF    THE    RAINBOW 

insurance  against  death  in  a  sum  equal  to  6  months' 
wages,  when  the  term  of  employment  has  been  from  5  to 
10  years,  and  to  one  year's  wages  when  the  term  of  em- 
ployment has  been  10  years  or  more,  with  a  maximum  of 
$2000  in  either  case,  such  insurance  to  be  paid  to  the  de- 
pendent relatives  left  by  the  employe." 

I  cite  this  plan  as  typical  of  many. 

Compensation  by  Commissions 

In  selling,  where  standards  are  based  on  volume  and 
quality  of  business,  the  commission  form  of  payment 
works  if  the  policy  of  the  house  is  understood.  The  aver- 
age commission-paid  salesman  will  always  make  sales  at 
the  expense  of  the  house,  and  therefore  requires  a  rigid 
auditing  of  the  quality  of  credit,  terms  of  sale,  and  a  care- 
ful education  in  the  policies  governing  the  credit  and  sales 
departments  at  the  home  office. 

The  Study  of  Records 

Any  business  that  fails  to  study  these  principles  of  re- 
wards is  not  building  for  a  future  which  will  keep  its  ex- 
perienced, trained  brains  for  the  protection  of  the  busi- 
ness interests  of  the  house.  The  rewards  may  be  financial; 
they  may  be  honorary;  they  may  be  promotional;  they 
may  be  permanent  or  for  a  time  only;  they  may  be  decora- 
tive. The  best  rewards  are  those  which  are  suited  to  the 
work,  and  if  the  work  is  suited  to  the  man  they  will  be 
adequate  to  satisfy  his  individuality. 

A  sales  manager  of  the  National  Cash  Register  Com- 
pany once  remarked,  "When  the  company  wanted  to  ex- 
press approval  of  your  work,  they  promoted  you  by  giv- 
ing you  a  bigger  title  and  a  smaller  territory."  This  was 
more  witty  than  true,  but  nevertheless,  was  in  line  with 
the  realization  that  by  honorary  titles  some  men  are  en- 
couraged to  get  the  same  amount  of  business  out  of  a 


THE    WAGE    PLAN 


445 


smaller  territory  that  they  would  get  out  of  a  larger  one; 
but  rewards  must  be  substantial  to  prove  enduring. 

Experience  as  a  Wage  Guide 

It  is  always  well,  before  establishing  new  reward  poli- 
cies, to  get  some  experience  data  to  guide  you. 

A  company  recently  started  out  to  give  the  man  who 
made  the  sale  a  larger  slice  of  the  rewards.  They  elimi- 
nated sales  managers  in  certain  territories,  and  in  their 
stead  appointed  sales  agents  under  more  general  super- 
vision. The  sales  manager  in  such  territories  had  received 
30  per  cent  commission.  The  sales  agents  were  raised 
from  15  per  cent  and  20  per  cent  to  20  per  cent  and  25  per 
cent  commission,  with  the  idea  that  the  increased  pay 
would  produce  more  business;  but  it  didn't.  Less  busi- 
ness came  out  of  those  territories.  It  is  likely  that  an 
analysis  of  previous  experience  in  other  organizations 
would  have  shown  that  the  increase  should  have  been 
given  for  increased  efficiency,  not  for  anticipated  benefits. 
The  man  who  is  satisfied  with  $2500  should  never  be  given 
a  $5000  territory.  Surely  a  more  business-like  plan  would 
have  been  to  take  the  $2500  men  and  try  them  out,  and 
after  analyzing  their  personal  records  as  to  tastes,  home 
life,  business  methods,  as  well  as  their  sales  records,  place 
them  in  the  new  sales  agencies  best  suited  to  their  needs. 
The  plan  of  reward  should  have  been  worked  out  along 
the  Emerson  lines — "The  employer  must  play  fair,  if  he 
wants  fair  play  from  the  worker." 

Piece-work  and  Fair  Play 

The  piece-work  system  in  the  average  factory  has 
hardly  ever  worked  because  the  employer  has  not  been 
educated  in  the  necessity  for  fair  play.  In  the  first  place, 
the  piece-work  rate  has  not  been  based  on  any  scien- 


446  THE    END    OF    THE    RAINBOW 

tifically  tested  data.  The  employer  didn't  know  whether 
the  rate  he  set  was  a  fair  rate  for  himself  and  for  the  man. 
He  relied  on  the  testimony  of  rule-of-thumb  foremen  to 
determine  what  the  average  man  under  the  old  prod-and- 
club  method  could  make,  and  then  based  his  piece  rate 
on  the  highest  production.  Just  as  soon  as  he  found  a 
man  who,  by  extraordinary  skill  or  application,  could  get 
a  much  better  day's  pay  than  usual,  he  made  him  the  new 
pace  maker  without  any  attempt  to  teach  the  other  men 
how  to  do  as  well  as  the  skilled  mechanic.  He  then  de- 
creased the  rate;  then  the  production  stopped  increasing 
because  there  was  a  limit  to  the  reward. 

Some  time  ago  a  publisher  friend  of  mine  employed  a 
number  of  girls  to  handle  pamphlets  in  a  bindery.  The 
average  wages  on  a  piece-work  basis  was  about  $9  a  week. 
One  girl  never  made  less  than  $11.50  a  week.  The  fore- 
woman suggested  that  the  rate  of  that  girl  should  be  cut 
as  it  was  "bad  for  the  rest  of  the  girls." 

My  friend  thought  differently  and  urged  the  fore- 
woman to  find  out  how  she  did  it.  He  had  a  hard  time 
proving  the  others  could  do  the  same  thing.  Now,  not  a 
girl  is  making  less  than  $12  a  week,  and  the  costs  of  pro- 
duction are  less  than  they  have  been  for  four  years. 

The  ordinary  manager  would  have  cut  the  rate  and 
maintained  the  average  of  costs. 

This  condition  arises  very  largely  from  the  ignorance 
of  the  man  at  the  head  of  the  business,  as  to  exactly  what 
compensation  really  is.  He  has  fixed  in  his  mind  that 
"$2  a  day  is  enough  for  any  man  to  get."  He  doesn't 
look  into  what  that  »$2  can  buy.  He  doesn't  look  into 
what  the  man's  labor  actually  produces  for  him,  or  how 
dif^cult  it  would  be  to  replace  him.  He  doesn't  realize 
that  he  gets  what  he  pays  for. 

"An  employer  gets  two  results  if  he  is  wise,"  said 


THE    WAGE    PLAN 


44; 


Hugh  Chalmers.  "First,  he  gets  hours  of  labor  which  are 
reflected  in  the  mere  physical  presence  on  a  job,  and 
second,  he  gets  thought;  and  of  these  two  things,  in  most 
cases,  the  latter  is  by  far  the  more  important." 

He  gets  these  things  as  a  result  upon  the  part  of  the 
employe,  of  first  learning  to  do  something,  then  learning 
how  to  do  it  better,  and  then  learning  how  to  keep  on 
doing  it  better. 

The  employe  too  frequently  looks  only  into  the  pay 
envelope  to  see  what  he  gets,  and  only  at  the  time  clock 
to  measure  what  he  shall  give. 

The  Bonus  for  Brains 

The  efforts  of  such  men  as  Going,  Emerson,  Taylor, 
Gantt,  and  Knoeppel  are  bringing  scientific  order  out  of 
the  chaos  of  rule-of-thumb  experience,  and  it  is  to  be 
hoped  that  some  of  the  brains  and  skill  will  be  applied  to 
the  problem  of  adequate  rewards  for  the  large  class  of 
employes  who  do  not  make  anything.  Mr.  Truman  A. 
DeWeese,  who  is  generally  conceded  to  have  helped  pull 
the  St.  Louis  Exposition  out  of  the  hole  by  a  very  simple 
advertising  idea,  and  who  has  made  "Shredded  Wheat" 
famous  the  world  over,  in  speaking  of  the  matter  of  com- 
pensation to  advertising  managers,  said  their  salary  should 
be  based  on  the  yearly  advertising  appropriation.  "Noth- 
ing less  than  an  annual  salary  of  $5000  a  year  should  be 
considered  for  a  moment,  and  to  this  salary  $1000  should 
be  added  for  every  tenth  dollar  of  appropriation  above 
the  sum  of  $100,000." 

A  leading  automobile  manufacturer  some  years  ago 
placed  a  new  car  on  the  market.  There  had  been  one  ad- 
vertising manager  of  automobiles  who  stood  out  above 
all  others  as  a  great  maker  of  markets.  He  had  made  a 
certain  car  a  household  term  i]i  the  United  States,  at  a 


448  THE    END    OF    THE    RAINBOW 

time  when  the  advertising  of  automobiles  to  a  hungry 
market  had  been  a  mere  matter  of  brute  expenditure. 
This  advertising  man  joined  the  new  company  on  a  salary 
of  less  than  $10,000  a  year,  but  with  a  royalty  on  every 
car  above  a  certain  number.  He  made  the  automobile 
world  "sit  up"  by  the  use  of  double  page  spreads  in  all 
the  leading  newspapers  of  the  country.  He  bought  a 
stock  interest  in  the  company.  He  checkmated,  by  using 
in  a  single  day  $15,000  worth  of  newspaper  space,  the 
tactics  of  a  combination  that  wanted  to  get  control  of 
his  company. 

When  it  was  ultimately  decided  that  the  company 
would  go  into  a  new  combination,  the  advertising  manager 
obtained  a  big  price  for  his  stock.  He  made  that 
company's  market.  Under  ordinary  circumstances  such 
a  company  would  have  paid  but  $2500  a  year  to  an  adver- 
tising man  who  would  have  brought  to  the  solution  of 
the  complex  problem  that  confronted  it  a  $2500-a-year 
brain.  Tt  should  be  noted  that  this  man  had  with  him,  as 
a  superior  staff  officer,  a  man  who  knew  his  man,  and  he 
got  out  of  that  advertising  man  the  last  ounce  of  power. 
Do  you  imagine,  for  a  moment,  that  such  a  man  would 
have  worked  for  the  ordinary  rewards  of  such  a  position? 
The  greater  organi;^ations  are  placing  lionuses  before  their 
sales  managers  and  advertising  managers.  The  great  mail 
order  houses  are  placing  their  division  managers  in  charge 
of  certain  territories,  on  a  bonus  basis,  payable  at  the  end 
of  each  year,  conditioned  on  the  increase  of  business  in 
their  divisions.  Tn  other  words,  human  nature  in  our 
clerk  is  exactly  the  same  as  it  is  in  ourselves. 

The  Suggestion  System 

What  are  von  doing  to  get  the  fnll  biain  power  out  of 
your  organization? 


THE    WAGE    PLAN 


449 


The  suggestion  system,  which  is  now  a  factor  in  the 
management  of  many  manufacturing  concerns  and  is  con- 
sidered one  of  the  most  essential  things  in  the  success  of 
many  organizations,  was  started  on  the  very  simple  prin- 
ciple of  human  nature,  that  it  will  think  when  the  rewards 
for  thinking  are  real. 

President  Patterson  of  the  N.  C  R.  Company,  who 
probably  brought  this  system  to  its  greatest  perfection, 
on  one  occasion  met  a  factory  hand  whom  he  had  known 
for  several  years  and  inquired  what  the  man  was  doing. 
"I  used  to  weigh  coal  for  you  in  Jackson  County,  but  I 
am  now  cleaning  castings  in  the  back  of  your  foundry," 
replied  the  workman. 

"Why  are  you  doing  that?"  asked  Mr.  Patterson.  "Be- 
cause I  can't  get  anything  better  to  do,"  the  man  repHed. 
"Make  some  good  suggestions,"  he  was  advised,  "and  do 
something  to  help  out,  and  your  merit  will  soon  be 
rewarded  by  promotion."  "If  I  should  do  that  you  would 
never  hear  of  it;  it  would  be  smothered  long  before  it  got 
to  you,  and  I  would  get  no  credit  for  it." 

"That  opened  my  eyes,"  said  Mr.  Patterson  in  tell- 
ing the  story.  "For  three  months  I  labored  over  that 
problem.  I  thought  what  a  great  opportunity  it  was. 
How  rapidly  the  company  could  progress  if  we  had  1200 
brains  working  for  us  correcting  wrongs  and  helping  us 
on  to  what  was  right.  From  that  time  the  suggestion 
system,  which  has,  more  than  any  other  cause,  pushed 
the  company  forward,  was  made  a  part  of  our  work.  Good 
suggestions  are  inventions,  because  they  are  something 
new.  Instead  of  giving  a  man  a  patent,  we  give  him  an 
acknowledgment.  The  fifty,  who  have  originated  the  best 
inventions,  are  given  special  prizes.  We  only  wish  we 
could  do  it  for  all." 

Marshall  Field  &  Company  got  its  entire  organization 


450 


THE     END     OF    THE    RAINBOW 


checking  up  the  advertising,  by  offering  a  dollar  to  the 
employe  who  would  first  call  their  attention  to  an  error 
in  any  of  the  advertisements.  It  was  considered  an  error 
if  there  was  any  exaggeration,  if  the  price  was  wrong,  if 
a  word  was  misspelled,  if  the  advertisement  was  gram- 
matically incorrect,  or  if  a  false  statement  of  any  kind 
occurred.  This  did  two  things — it  made  the  employes 
read  the  advertisements  very  carefully,  and  it  made  them 
think  about  the  things  said  in  the  advertising.  It  was 
well  worth  the  occasional  dollar  because  it  made  the  ad- 
vertising department  more  careful,  and  the  managers  of 
the  different  departments  more  accurate  in  the  pricing  and 
description  of  goods. 

Requirements  of  the  Suggestion  System 

To  make  a  suggestion  system  successful,  however,  you 
must  be  willing  to  compensate  for  the  ideas.  You  must 
not  "put  one  over"  by  expecting  an  idea  worth  thousands 
to  be  cheerfully  given  for  a  fifty-dollar  prize.  Suggestions 
must  be: 

First — Handled  by  competent  judges  who  can  give  an 
expert  opinion  of  their  value. 

Second — Rewards  should  be  based  on  value  as  near  as 
can  be  ascertained,  and  not  on  any  *'dollar-an-idea" 
basis. 

Third — It  has  been  found  a  good  thing  to  give  pro- 
motional as  well  as  monetary  rewards. 

Fourth — Be  prepared  to  keep  up  the  work,  by  offer- 
ing prizes  for  special  suggestions  along  certain  lines. 

Fifth — Share  the  continued  benefits  of  a  suggestion 
with  the  man  who  had  the  idea — play  fair  with  him. 

So  we  come  to  the  conclusion  that  any  system  which 
hopes  to  keep  man  at  his  top  efficiency  must  be  prepared 


THE    WAGE    PLAN 


451 


to  see  that  the  rewards  which  flow  to  him  shall  be  counted 
in  current  coinage  in  life  as  it  is.  Loyalty  must  be  re- 
warded with  loyalty  and  sympathy  and  co-operation. 
Punctuality  and  continuous  service  must  be  rewarded  with 
body  comforts  and  care  when  the  body  has  lost  its  vigor. 
Ideas,  methods,  and  suggestions  must  be  rewarded  by 
facilities  for  greater  educational  advantages,  and  the  help 
of  the  managers  towards  better  positions,  with  their 
greater  monetary  prizes. 

Above  all  these  things  stands  this  lesson — no  business 
is  efficiently  conducted  which  does  not  deliberately  set 
itself  about  the  duty  of  making  its  people  worth  more  to 
themselves  and  the  house,  and  then  seeing  that  they  get 
the  deserved  reward. 

No  firm  can  afTord  to  be  less  careful  of  the  reward 
for  the  worker  than  it  is  of  the  reward  for  its  own 
efTort. 


PART   XII 


Ich  Dien 

Ideals  are  like  stars;  you  will  not  succeed  in  touching 
them  with  your  hands,  but  like  the  sea-faring  man  on  the 
desert  of  waters,  you  choose  them  as  your  guides,  and, 
following  them,  you  reach  your  destiny. — Carl  Schurz. 

Enough  of  negotiations,  enough,  above  all,  of  jugglers 
and  poseurs!  Give  us  men  of  faith  and  action,  of  love  and 
hate,  with  clear  seeing  eye,  a  breast  that  throbs,  and  a 
vigorous  arm;  tnen  who,  emancipated  from  idle  fancies  and 
the  empty  din  of  words,  are  silent,  and  putting  their  hands 
to  the  plow,  drive,  as  their  witness,  a  straight  furrow  in 
the  field  of  life. — Charles  Wagner. 


CHAPTER    XXXVI 

EDUCATED  DEMOCRACY 

Efficiency  must  not  be  materialistic,  prosaic,  or  utili- 
tarian; it  must  be  idealistic,  humane,  and  passionate,  or  it 
will  not  win  its  goal. — Charles  W.  Eliot. 

The  Filene  Cooperative  Association 

"What  do  you  think  of  this?"  asked  the  fat,  well-fed, 
rosy-faced  man  of  the  lean,  lank,  jaundiced  individual 
across  the  open  fireplace  at  a  New  York  club. 

He  then  read  a  paragraph  about  the  experiment  of  a 
concern  in  Boston  that  had  introduced  cooperative  man- 
agement among  its  employes. 

"What  do  I  think  of  it?"  returned  he  of  the  jaundiced 
face,  "I  think  the  fellows  who  have  any  money  in  that 
concern  better  get  it  out." 

That  was  sixteen  years  ago. 

During  the  latter  part  of  1898,  the  members  of  the 
firm  and  the  executive  department  heads  of  The  William 
Filene's  Sons  Company,  which  operates  the  Filene  stores 
in  Boston,  came  to  a  new  conclusion — that  the  men  and 
women  behind  the  counter  could  be  helpful  in  shaping 
management  policies  as  well  as  in  executing  them. 

For  some  time  it  had  been  the  practice  in  the  Filene 
Stores  to  hold  weekly  meetings  to  discuss  store  policies, 
sales  plans,  and  the  "good  of  the  business."  So  many 
subjects  came  up  in  the  every-day  routine  of  work  which 
were  of  interest  to  all  employes,  and  so  many  things  had 
to  be  referred  to  other  employes  before  anything  could 
be  done,  that  the  conferences  were  discontinued ;  and  mass 
meetings  of  employes,  held  every  Friday  night  at  close 

455 


456  ICH    DIEN 

of  the  store,  were  substituted.  Out  of  these  mass  meet- 
ings, in  the  year  following  (1899),  grew  the  Kilene  Co- 
operative Association. 

The  employes  of  the  stores  compose  the  F.  C.  A.,  as  it 
is  called.  The  association  does  things;  it  takes  an  active 
and  responsible  part  in  the  management  of  the  employes. 
The  association,  for  instance,  has  "the  privilege  of  initi- 
ating or  amending  any  rule  that  affects  the  efficiency  of 
any  employe  of  the  store."  This  rule  must  be  passed  by 
two-thirds  of  the  members.  It  may  be  vetoed  by  the 
president,  general  manager,  or  board  of  managers  of  the 
company,  and  after  such  a  veto,  if  a  mass  meeting  of  the 
Filene  Cooperative  Association  passes  it  over  the  veto,  the 
rule  becomes  operative. 

The  Cooperative  Association  is  governed  by  officers 
and  a  board  of  managers.  It  operates  a  health  and  death 
insurance  department.  It  has  a  medical  department  and 
physicians,  a  dentist,  and  specialists  in  various  ills  of  the 
flesh,  who  look  after  the  health  of  the  employes.  There 
is  a  lecture  committee  which  procures  interesting  and 
instructive  speakers  to  talk  to  the  members  after  store 
hours.  There  are  library  and  entertainment  committees. 
A  suggestion  committee  was  established  in  1899,  under 
whose  supervision  prizes  for  the  best  suggestions  in  any 
week  are  granted  with  yearly  prizes  for  those  who  won  the 
most  weekly  prizes  during  a  year.  In  1900  a  welfare  man- 
ager's office  was  created,  now  called  the  F.  C.  A.  Coun- 
selor; then  came  the  club-house  with  its  governing  com- 
mittee of  employes,  in  1901.  In  1900  an  F.  C.  A.  Bank 
was  established. 

What  the  Filene  Cooperative  Association  Has  Done 

A  council  looks  after  most  of  the  small  matters  within 
the  scope  of  the  Association's  activity,  while  on  all  im- 


EDUCATED    DEMOCRACY  457 

portant  things  the  members  gather  in  mass  meeting  and 
pass  upon  them.  Here  are  some  of  tlie  thint^s  these  mass 
meetings  have  done: 

On  one  occasion  the  F.  C.  A.  voted  to  close  the  store 
for  the  three  days  beginning  July  4th — which  fell 
on  Thursday — so  as  to  give  three  day's  vacation  to 
the  employes.  Other  Boston  stores  were  notified 
but  refused  to  follow  Filene's  example. 

The  Association  voted  against  the  customary  keep- 
ing open  evenings  preceding  Christmas,  and  the 
store  is  never  kept  open  after  7:00  P.  M. 

They  voted  on  early  closing  hours  and  determined 
when  these  hours  should  begin  and  end. 

They  made  a  rule  that  employes  be  permitted  to  buy 
advertised  goods  on  any  day  during  employes'  reg- 
ular shopping  hours  instead  of  limiting  their  pur- 
chasing to  one  day  each  week. 

They  resolved  to  raise  money  to  rehabilitate  the 
F.  C.  A.  members  who  suffered  loss  in  the  Chelsea 
Fire  in  1908. 

They  voted  at  various  times  to  purchase  goods  out 
of  company  stock  at  fixed  discounts.  The  com- 
pany in  1906  made  the  F.C.A.,  as  a  corporation,  a 
stockholder  in  the  Wm.  Filene's  Sons  Company. 

The  F.  C.  A.  Arbitration  Board 

Probably  the  most  important  innovation  in  working 
out  the  Filene  scheme  of  management  was  the  Arbitration 
Board,  which  came  through  the  evolution  of  the  co- 
operative idea,  in  June,  1901.  Problems  of  management 
affecting  the  employes  are  referred  to  this  Arbitration 
Board.  As  an  example:  It  has  been  the  rule  of  the  com- 
pany that  "Any  breakage  or  loss  shall  be  immediately  re- 
ported   to    the    floor    superintendent,    or,    in    a    non-sales 


458  ICH    DIEN 

section,  to  its  manager.  He  will  charge  the  loss  to  the 
person  who  has  negligently  caused  it,  over  the  latter's 
signature.  The  cashier  will  then  deduct  the  amount  from 
the  week's  wages." 

At  one  of  the  mass  meetings,  this  rule  was  discussed 
at  considerable  length.  It  was  plain  it  had  been  working 
some  hardship.  Finally  someone  suggested  a  board  of 
arbitration.  The  firm  agreed  at  once,  and  that  board  has 
not  only  this  matter  of  breakages  to  adjust,  but  now  it 
adjusts  differences  between  the  firm  and  the  employes, 
or  between  employes,  relative  to  store  affairs.  In  case  of 
dismissal,  two-thirds  of  the  board  may  re-instate  the 
employe. 

What  the  F.  C.  A.  Stands  For 

What  does  this  cooperative  management  mean?  Does 
it  not  mean  democracy? 

It  means  that  the  Filene  managers  had  confidence  in 
the  human  unit's  power  of  self-control. 

In  a  democracy  we  must  teach  self-control,  because 
there  is  no  other  authority.  But  self-control  is  the  highest 
result  of  education,  and  it  is  the  scarcest. 

It  is  generally  the  last  quality  to  appear.  It  calls  for 
the  highest  social  character,  in  the  store,  the  shop,  or  the 
office.  Our  sales  organizations  are  today  largely  democ- 
racies, because  they  pass  laws  and  make  decisions  to 
govern  themselves  and  their  relations  to  their  firms.  The 
modern,  highly  organized  sales  force  can  be  trusted  to  do 
that,  because  the  sales  force  is  becoming  much  more 
highly  developed,  and  a  better  class  of  men  is  being  used 
in  the  development  of  sales  organizations. 

In  the  case  of  Filene's,  the  fine  spirit,  gained  only  after 
painstaking  and  patient  education  of  the  employe  by  the 
employer,   which    trusts    to    the   good   intentions   of  the 


EDUCATED    DEMOCRACY 


459 


employer,  has  come  as  a  result  of  the  spirit  of  mutual 
service,  and  mutual  loyalty. 

Back  of  these  Filene  methods  there  is  a  philosophy, 
so  unusual  that  some  may  call  it  "anarchic,"  as  General 
Manager  Corey  did,  but  it  is  a  definite  and  well-considered 
policy,  not  at  all  sentimental  or  improvident  of  money 
success.  It  is  a  realization  of  a  duty  the  Thinker  owes  to 
the  Doer. 

Education  must  breed  more  than  skill;  it  must  create 
character,  stamina,  and  a  fidelity  to  truth  which  amounts  to 
religion. 

The  economic  panaceas  of  get-rich-quick  fakers  put  me 
in  mind  of  those  modern  Chinese  who  asked  to  be  taught 
all  of  Western  culture  and  economics  in  six  months,  and 
actually  found  teachers  who  "agreed  to  deliver  the 
goods." 

We  are  in  the  twilight  zone  of  doubt  through  which 
all  things  must  pass;  we  are  entering  this  zone  the  world 
over;  but  the  old  faiths  will  come  back  in  a  new  guise  to 
serve  greater  and  more  profound  purposes. 

Democracy  Steadfast 

Democracy,  too,  will  go  through  a  period  of  storm 
and  stress.  Some  think  the  result  will  be  reactionary, 
that  we  will  return  to  the  old  ideals  of  class  and  rulers. 
I  do  not  believe  it.  We  shall  remain  a  democracy.  We 
shall  place  truth  and  honor  and  health  as  high  as  we  have 
placed  liberty.  We  shall  each  do  his  appointed  task,  that 
which  each  is  best  fitted  to  do,  in  the  best  way.  Educa- 
tion will  be  recognized  as  the  great  requirement  of  the 
race.  To  know  and  to  Hve  in  the  light  of  knowledge — 
this  is  our  destiny,  as  manifest  as  the  old  ways  were  the 
destiny  of  older  days  and  older  people. 

Democracy  is  now  struggling  without  its  saving  gos- 


460 


ICH    DIEN 


pel.     It  is  cunning,  skilful,  clever.     It  recognizes  no  duty 
except  to  its  own  kind. 

Democracy  will  come  to  the  realization  that  knowl- 
edge of  the  real  things  of  life  is  necessary  to  any  solution 
of  life's  problem.  Ignorant  officials  are  a  product  of  an 
ignorant  people.  It  is  a  sad  thing  to  look  upon  the 
civic  chicanery,  the  crass  ignorance  and  stupidity  of  our 
voters,  which  puts  political  bosses  on  our  benches  as 
judges,  and  the  pathos  of  the  ease  with  which  they  are 
bought  and  sold  by  their  political  leaders  who  boast  of 
their  ability  to  deliver  votes. 


CHAPTER    XXXVII 

THE  LAW  OF  SERVICE 

And  the  Black  Prince  rode  forth  that  day  surrounded 
with  brave  knights,  squires,  men  at  arms,  and  pages  of  the 
household ;  and  on  his  shield  was  blazoned  the  motto  under 
which  he  fought — "ICH  DIEN" — which  in  the  common 
tongue  would  be  translated,  "I  serve."  It  was  a  new, 
strange  motto  for  a  prince  to  wear. 

The  great  regulating  influence  in  business  is  the  solid 
fact  that  sound  and  steady  service  to  the  public  will  gain 
the  public  confidence,  provided  the  supply  of  capital  will 
suffice  for  the  tim,e  in  which  it  is  necessary  to  gain  that 
confidence. — George  Binney  Dibblee. 

//  youth  knew — if  age  could. — Alphonse  Karr. 

Profits  arc  legitimate  only  tvhcn  they  come  from  service. 

— WooDROw  Wilson. 

What  of  the  Thinkers  and  Doers  ? 

But  America  is  learning.  Her  thinkers  must  learn  to 
cater  and  to  lead.  TTer  doers  will  have  to  learn  how  to 
use  her  thinkers  for  the  common  good,  as  Germany's 
people  have  done. 

The  people  are  not  in  a  temper  to  pause.  They  de- 
mand the  full  pound  of  flesh  of  the  thinker,  hecause  they 
do  not  know  that  the  exaction  of  the  penalty  will  press 
heaviest  on  themselves  who  will  have  to  replace  the 
thinker,  and  to  make  a  thinker  requires  the  breeding  of 
generations. 

If  the  doers  exact  that  penalty,  good;  thev  will  pay 
the  penalty,  as  they  always  do.  The  thinkers  of  the  world 
arc   the   financiers,    the   distributors,    the   organizers,   and 

461 


462  ICH    DIEN 

the  commanders.  This  is  true  in  the  sociaHst  organiza- 
tions and  labor  unions,  as  well  as  in  factories  and  depart- 
ment stores.  There  is  always  the  leader  and  the  follower, 
even  among  the  anarchists. 

Both  the  doer  and  the  thinker  have  a  labor  to  per- 
form; the  former  to  widen  his  mental  horizon  and  to 
engage  to  do  his  work  most  efficiently,  the  thinker  to  be 
the  teacher  and  character-maker  of  the  world.  Since  the 
doer  always  takes  his  morals,  his  ethics,  and  his  religion 
from  his  leaders,  a  lack  of  character  among  the  leaders 
makes  a  lack  of  character  everywhere.  The  successful 
and  unpunished  looting  of  a  railroad  by  one  rich  man 
makes  little  thieves  of  a  thousand  clerks,  bookkeepers, 
and  employes.  One  Tammany  chieftain  makes  grafters  of 
ward  heelers  and  petty  politicians,  and  cowards  of  thou- 
sands of  business  men  who  are  forced  to  deal  with  them. 

Education  as  a  Remedial  Agent 

What  is  the  remedy?  Education,  because  that  leads  to 
truth,  and  character. 

As  soon  as  man's  eyes  are  opened  to  the  fact  that  hon- 
esty pays  the  highest  rewards  to  heart  and  soul  and  body, 
that  honesty  is  the  tap-root  of  all  efficiency,  and  that  no 
efficiency  is  possible  without  a  fearless  desire  for  an  honest 
measure  of  values,  we  shall  start  on  a  new  era  in  our  land. 

The  thinkers  must  lead  the  doers  to  a  study  of  the 
sciences — mathematics,  sanitation,  economics,  physics; 
and  we  shall  then  be  spared  the  specious  appeals  to  avar- 
ice, greed,  class  hatred,  and  false  standards  of  honor  by 
ignorant  and  myopic  leaders.  The  doers  will  find  that 
things  do  not  hajjpen,  that  man-made  law  is  a  puny,  idle, 
and  contemptilfle  thing  against  the  law  of  nature;  and 
that  even  those  things  enacted  in  the  name  of  the  people 
will  be  futile  if  not  true  to  the  law  of  nature. 


THE    LAW    OF    SERVICE  463 

The  Moral  Law  of  Service 

Of  course,  the  Filene  cooperative  idea  is  not  new,  but 
its  thoroughgoing  application,  in  the  Filene  Stores,  is 
quite  exceptional. 

In  contrast  with  the  attitude  of  the  Filene  proprietors, 
we  more  frequently  find  the  attitude  taken  by  Mr.  George 
Gould. 

"Can't  I  do  what  I  like  with  my  own  railroad,  Ram- 
say?" asked  Mr.  Gould  of  President  Ramsay,  of  the 
Wabash,  when  the  latter  was  objecting  to  a  proposed  plan 
of  Mr.  Gould's.  "You  could  if  it  were  your  railroad," 
very  quietly  replied  Mr.  Ramsay,  "but  it  isn't.  It  belongs 
to  the  stockholders  and  to  the  people  it  serves."  Mr. 
Ramsay  is  no  longer  president  of  the  Wabash,  and  that 
much  bedeviled  organization  afterward  passed  into  a  re- 
ceivership. 

Back  of  the  progress  of  the  Filene  Stores  and  the 
receivership  of  the  Wabash  railroad  lies  the  same  princi- 
ple of  efficiency  which  is  a  moral  law  of  service. 

No  business  can  efficiently  gain  its  best  ends  that 
serves  only  its  stockholders'  pocketbooks.  It  must  serve 
the  larger  interests  of  the  entire  organization,  the  stock- 
holders, the  employes,  and  the  public  at  large.  This  is 
the  rule  of  common  sense  applied  to  business.  It  is  a 
moral  obligation  implied  in  the  privilege  to  exist,  granted 
by  society.  Good  service  is  the  only  thing  for  which  a 
man  can  long  continue  to  receive  a  price. 

The  ideal  of  service  is  not  worked  out  by  speeches 
full  of  fine  sentiments  about  the  "peepul"  or  embroidered 
with  patriotic  folderol.  It  is  not  the  distribution  of  tracts 
about  scientific  agriculture  with  one  hand  and  of  printed 
interviews  which  sneer  at  efficiency  engineers  with  the 
other.  It  is  genuine  public  service  in  which  we  have  the 
propaganda  of  conservation  and  farming  efficiency  of  a 


464  ICH    DIEN 

James  J.  Hill,  of  the  Great  Northern,  going  hand  in  hand 
with  a  propaganda  for  higher  efficiency  on  the  railroad  of 
a  President  McCrea,  of  the  Pennsylvania. 

Service!  whether  the  Rockefellers,  the  Garys,  the 
Lovetts,  the  Guggenheims,  the  Armours,  the  Elliotts  are 
as  wedded  to  the  cause  of  service  as  they  appear  to  be,  the 
future  alone  will  tell.  It  may  be  said,  however,  that  never 
again  will  the  great  corporations  make  the  mistake  of 
ignoring  that  great,  many-headed,  patient,  yet  intolerant 
People. 

Service  has  become  a  shibboleth  of  organization;  it 
may  become  a  mere  tradition  or  a  fetish. 

Good- Will  a  Product  of  Service 

Consider  even  on  the  selfish  side  of  it,  the  value  of  the 
good-will  of  your  people  and  the  public.  What  can  you 
put  beside  that? 

Despite  the  accountants  who  are  reluctant  to  include 
it  as  an  asset,  there  is  that  which  cannot  be  translated 
into  dollars  on  the  balance-sheet,  but  which  is  neverthe- 
less a  very  real  thing,  good-will.  It  comes  from  but  one 
thing,  service. 

Justice  Wright  in  his  decision  in  the  case  of  the  Bucks 
Stove  and  Range  Company  against  the  American  Federa- 
tion of  Labor,  said:  "Good-will  is  nothing  more  nor  less 
than  the  realization  upon  the  part  of  the  public  that  they 
can  get  a  service  that  is  worth  while  from  a  business  or- 
ganization. A  business,  be  it  mercantile,  manufacturing, 
or  other,  which  has  for  a  long  time  been  successfully 
operated  and  developed,  possesses  a  greater  value  than  a 
like  business  newly  launched,  although  the  latter  be  ex- 
actly equivalent  with  respect  to  stock,  equipment,  moneys, 
and  all  other  physical  possessions;  the  basis  of  the  excess 
in  value  of  the  one  over  the  other  is  termed  the  'good-will,' 


THE    LAW    OF    SERVICE  465 

and  it  is  the  advantage  which  exists  in  established  trade 
relations  not  only  with  helpful  customers,  but  with  the 
trading  public  in  general;  and  the  advantage  of  an  estab- 
lished public  repute  for  punctuality  in  dealing,  or  superior 
excellence  of  goods  or  product;  finally  in  the  last  analysis, 
a  good-will  when  it  exists,  is  one  return  for  the  expendi- 
ture of  time,  money,  energy,  and  efifort  in  development; 
it  is  a  thing  of  value  in  the  sense  that  it  is  a  subject  of 
bargain  and  sale,  ofttimes  of  a  value  which  exceeds  all 
physical  assets  taken  together;  in  order  that  it  may  pos- 
sess exchange  value,  it  may  be  property;  when  it  does 
possess  exchange  value,  property  it  is." 

The  Value  of  Good-Will 

The  mere  fact  that  a  business  is  old,  does  not  imply 
that  it  has  any  good-will  value.  It  implies  simply  that  it 
has  had  an  opportunity  to  gain  a  good-will  by  good 
service,  and  its  age  indicates  that  the  demand  for  service 
has  been  met.  In  a  well-known  investigation  made  by 
the  Wisconsin  State  Railroad  Commission,  President 
Beggs  of  the  Milwaukee  Railways,  testified  that  his 
"street-car  bonds  were  sold  below  par,  because  of  the  ill 
will  of  the  public." 

A  newspaper,  commenting  editorially  on  this  testi- 
mony, said: 

"When  citizens  have  made  complaint  of  service  or  con- 
ditions, when  has  he  ever  received  them  courteously?  Has 
he  not  always  damned  and  denounced  the  public  as  un- 
reasonable? Has  he  not  defied  the  common  council  and 
contemptuously  refused  to  observe  city  ordinances? 

"The  street-car  company  renders  a  very  necessary  public 
service,  and  it  does  it,  on  the  whole,  fairly  well.  By  his 
sudden  and  arbitrary  withdrawal  of  the  car  service  to  Lake 
Park  he  has  again  unnecessarily  aroused  the  bitterest  kind 
of  antagonism,  for  this  was  a  service  to  which  the  whole 
city  was  entitled,  and  it  was  a  service  very  profitable  to 


466  ICH    DIEN 

the  company.  But  we  do  not  agree  with  Mr.  Bcggs  that 
there  is  a  widespread  feeling  of  hostility  to  the  street-car 
company. 

"There  is  not,  but  there  is  a  deep  feeling  and  well  de- 
served feeling  of  hostility  to  the  treatment  Mr.  Beggs  often- 
times gives  the  public,  and  it  may  well  react  to  the  serious 
injury  of  the  company.  If  Mr.  Beggs  wants  the  good  will 
of  the  people  in  Milwaukee,  he  should  try  to  gain  it. 
But  he  evidently  does  not  want  it,  and  some  day  he  is 
going  to  regret  that  he  has  lost  it." 

Aside  from  the  justification  of  this  particular  indict- 
ment, this  incident  brings  out  the  fact  that  service  has 
a  monetary  value;  and  while  this  statement  requires  no 
particular  proof,  yet  no  matter  how  efficient  may  have 
been  the  equipment  of  the  Milwaukee  Railways,  no  matter 
how  thoroughly  trained  may  have  been  the  employes  in 
the  handling  of  its  equipment,  no  matter  how  much  money 
the  company  could  have  made  in  the  use  of  the  equipment, 
the  public  mind  with  which  it  had  to  deal,  had  to  be  in 
harmony  with  its  efficiencies  in  material  things,  or  the 
result  was  bound  to  be  inadequate.  To  leave  entirely  out 
of  its  ideals  of  management,  the  sense  of  the  moral  obli- 
gation of  service,  either  upon  the  part  of  the  employe  or 
of  the  employer,  is  inevitably  to  gain  but  a  small  part  of 
that  efficiency  for  which  we  are  striving. 

The  Purpose  of  Cooperation 

A  commercial  enterprise  is  carried  on  for  profit  and 
not  for  the  advancement  of  knowledge.  There  is  a  wider 
and  better  standard  of  profit  which  big  men  have  always 
understood,  a  measure  of  the  profits  belonging  to  today 
and  the  equally  important  profits  belonging  to  the  day 
after. 

The  employer  must  take  care  of  the  employe  and  so 
identify  the  employe's  interest  with  his  own  that  the  em- 
ploye  will   see   that  it   is   to  his  manifest   advantage   to 


THE    LAW    OF    SERVICE  467 

Strive  to  the  uttermost  for  the  common  benefit.  The 
employe,  endeavoring  to  get  more  wages  in  money,  pres- 
tige, and  satisfaction,  must  cooperate  with  the  employer 
to  obtain  the  utmost  return  on  their  common  investment; 
and  they  together  must  make  it  possible  for  the  public 
to  see  that  it  is  to  its  manifest  advantage  to  deal  with  the 
house  and  thus  encourage  its  service. 

In  the  Filene  Stores,  the  members  of  the  Cooperative 
Association  cooperate  with  each  other  to  produce  the 
most  efficient  cooperation  with  the  employer,  but  that 
does  not  lessen  the  requirement  that  the  employer  make 
himself  necessary,  by  the  excellence  of  his  service,  to  the 
buying  public,  which  supports  both  the  Cooperative  As- 
sociation and  the  Filene's  Sons  Company, 

The  Ideal  of  Service 

This,  then,  is  the  ultimate  and  ideal  purpose  of  all 
efficiency  and  of  all  the  laws  working  toward  this  one  end 
of  success,  the  ideal  of  service.  The  public  service  corpo- 
ration which  leaves  the  word  "service"  out  of  its  ideals, 
must  inevitably  come  to  that  fateful  day  when  it  must 
justify  its  existence  on  the  service  basis,  and  every  munici- 
pal ownership  propaganda  is  born  in  the  idea  that  a  cor- 
poration takes  and  will  not  give.  The  labor  union  man 
who  considers  service  to  his  union,  without  considering 
either  the  profitable  employment  of  capital  or  a  service  in 
behalf  of  the  world  at  large,  will  eliminate  himself  and  his 
union,  however  much  he  may  resort  to  strikes,  dynamit- 
ings,  bloodshed,  costly  walkouts,  and  all  the  makeshifts  of 
terrorism. 

He  is  fighting  the  law  of  action  and  reaction. 

The  man  who,  with  tongue  in  cheek  winks  the  other 
eye  as  he  says,  "Service  is  a  good  thing  to  talk,"  will  fail, 
because  service  is  neither  talk,  printer's  ink,  nor  promises 


468  ICH    DIEN 

to  pay;  it  is  doing  things  for  others  in  recognition  of 
your  moral  obligation  to  do  more  than  the  letter  of  your 
contract  if  you  are  in  business;  and  for  the  citizen  it  means 
a  free  recognition  of  the  claims  of  society  on  you  for  a 
part  of  your  time,  work,  and  money  in  its  behalf.  You 
can't  dodge  it;  it  is  the  law;  and  prosperity  follows  the 
law. 

Let  us  see.     Business  exists  for  three  reasons: 

First — Because  man  is 
Second — Because  he  will  be 

Third — Because  man  in  order  to  live,  must  encour- 
age others  to  live 

The  fundamental  basis  of  society  is  economic  law,  and 
to  leave  this  law  out  of  any  method  of  raising  the  efficien- 
cies of  man  and  society,  is  to  leave  the  soul  out  of  efficiency. 
Efficiency  is  a  moral  obligation.  Man  must  take  care  of 
himself  and  his  fellows.  If  he  doesn't  take  care  of  himself, 
he  eliminates  himself;  and  if  everyone  should  work  on  that 
principle,  society  would  die.  If  a  man  doesn't  take  care 
of  his  fellow,  and  if  society  becomes  "everyone  for  him- 
self and  the  devil  take  the  hindmost,"  we  shall  have  the 
anarchy  of  a  society  destroying  itself.  In  other  words,  we 
have  a  two-fold  service  to  perform,  the  one  to  ourselves 
and  the  second  to  others;  and  this  is  the  economic  law, 

"But,"  says  the  socialist,  "we  are  going  to  make  all 
the  world  brothers." 

"When  you  can,"  I  answer,  "they'll  be  brothers,  and 
they  won't  need  you." 

Democracy  Is  Not  Equality 

Let  us  understand  democracy  in  its  relation  to  the 
individual. 

Democracy  can  only  assure  every  man  a  fair  start;  it 


THE    LAW    OF    SERVICE  469 

can  not  guarantee  him  an  equal  finish.  It  can  see  that 
all  have  a  fair  opportunity  but  not  the  same  rewards.  Bui 
the  blown-in-the-bottle,  hand-made  democrat  wants  to  be 
assured  that  he  will  have  a  fair  start,  be  permitted  to  do 
as  he  pleases,  get  all  the  rewards,  and  have  just  as  good 
a  finish  as  anyone  else. 

He  wants  you  to  hold  back  the  great  and  push  ahead 
the  insignificant,  so  that  everyone  may  have  all,  yet  none 
more  than  another. 

Society  does  not  recognize  that  the  service  of  all  its 
members  is  of  equal  value;  therefore,  it  gives  unequal  re- 
wards. 

The  Golden  Rule  of  Efficiency 

The  whole  gospel  of  efficiency,  therefore,  is  based  on 
this  moral  rule — to  do  that  which  we  can  do  to  the  best 
advantage  of  ourselves  and  others.  When  reduced  to  its 
simplest  statement,  the  whole  of  "efficiency,"  is  expressed 
by  the  one  word,  service — service  in  behalf  of  high  ideals 
in  thinking,  doing,  and  being.  So  much  for  the  cold  logic 
of  the  foundation  of  the  law — he  zvho  would  profit  most, 
must  serve  best.  Let's  translate  it  into  a  dollars-and- 
cents  attitude  towards  business.  The  general  manager 
of  Kaufmann  Brothers,  of  Pittsburg,  said  there  are  four 
principles  which  must  govern  a  business  today: 

First — One  price  system — meaning  service  of  honest 
ideals 

Second — Buy  in  quantities  to  get  price — meaning  ef- 
ficient service 

Third — Good  store  service  and  due  regard  for  the  com- 
fort, convenience,  health,  and  safety  of  the  public 

Fourth — The  development  among  employes  of  a  spirit 
of  cooperation  that  insures  industry,  integrity,  truth- 


470  ICH    DIEN 

fulness,  sobriety,  cleanliness,  and  politeness,  and  the 
store  service  from  the  proprietors  themselves  which 
would  insure  it. 

The  New  York  Central  Lines  employ  over  135,000 
men  and  have  franchises  which  made  it  unassailable  in  a 
physical  way,  but  it  lately  is  coming  to  a  clear  realization 
that  it  can  not  afford  to  take  chances  with  the  good-will 
of  the  public.  Vice-President  C.  F.  Daly,  in  an  interview 
in  1912,  said:  "When  you  have  pleased  the  public  you 
have  won  success." 

The  Acid  Test  of  Service 

"We  will  admit  the  advertising  and  sales  value  of  serv- 
ice, but  what  of  the  application  of  the  rule?"  asks  the  in- 
quiring mind.  "What  general  rule  can  we  apply?"  asks 
the  practical  man.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  rule  is  simple. 
The  acid  test  is,  "What's  the  use  to  the  body,  mind,  and 
soul  of  men?"  That  which  does  not  benefit  more  than  one 
man  or  one  class,  and  that  which  does  not  repay  society 
as  well  as  the  individual,  has  ceased  to  merit  social  ap- 
proval, protection,  and  cooperation. 

Education  is  making  intelligent,  constructive,  and 
economical  consideration  of  the  values  offered  by  businesses, 
parties,  and  individuals  the  rule  rather  than  the  exception. 
The  service  ideal  is  thus  coming  into  its  own. 

The  fact  is  that  we  have  carried  the  individual  to  the 
point  where  the  teacher,  the  preacher,  the  voter,  and  the 
official  have  given  all  their  time,  thought,  and  labor  to  the 
individual.  The  rewards  have  gone  to  the  individual. 
That  is  wrong. 


CHAPTER    XXXVIII 

THE  DEBT  TO  SOCIETY 

One  man  costs  society  ten  millions  while  he  makes  a 
million,  while  another  adds  ten  millions  to  society's  wealth 
as  he  makes  one  for  himself. — Newell  Dwight  Hillis. 

The  object  of  all  education  should  be  to  increase  the 
usefulness  of  man — usefulness  to  himself  and  others. 

— Robert  G.  Ingersoll. 

What  shall  it  profit  business  if  it  gain  the  whole  world 
and  lose  its  own  soul? — Harrington  Emerson. 

The  Dollar  Value  of  Education 

What  of  society? 

When  the  rule-of-thumb  experience  seemed  to  turn  out 
a  few  conspicuously  successful  men,  we  heard  the  business 
man  decry  the  school  and  college  and,  in  fact,  all  educa- 
tion, as  a  waste  of  individual  time  and  public  money,  in- 
stead of  realizing  that  these  great  men  had  been  more 
susceptible  to  the  education  of  experience  than  he. 

The  business  man  is  the  most  dogmatic  of  men. 

As  the  farmers  in  Michigan  the  other  day  wanted  to 
lower  the  compulsory  educational  requirements,  so  others 
have  tried  to  give  ignorance  its  diploma. 

They  forgot  that  the  successful  men  who  had  gone  to 
school  but  two  years  in  their  lives  were  men  who  had 
been  going  to  a  school  of  a  larger  sort  ever  since.  They 
had  been  studying  and  learning  and  working  all  the  time. 

The  Teaching  of  the  Schools 

Where  did  schools  come  from?  Was  it  not  from  expe- 
rience?   We  must  agree  that  they  came  from  the  realiza- 

471 


472 


ICH    DIEN 


tion  of  our  common-sense  ancestors  that  they  couldn't 
teach  all  the  best  things  in  their  hojiies  as  well  as  one  man 
who  was  in  touch  with  all  the  best  and  true  things,  could 
teach  them  in  school.  Let  us  remember  that,  and  we'll 
find  no  great  difliculty  in  finding  its  application  to  the 
plant  and  the  store. 

It  looks  as  though  we  have  forgotten  why  we  started 
schools.  One  man  says  we  started  schools  to  give  the 
best  results  of  all  previous  experience  to  those  who  were 
about  to  enter  on  new  experiences. 

Industry  and  Society  Interactive 

Our  schools  have  fallen  away  from  experience  because 
we  who  are  having  the  experiences,  have  fallen  away  from 
the  schools.  We  have  left  them  to  women,  children,  and 
school  men. 

We  have  as  an  ideal,  business  which  is  to  make  men  so 
they  can  live  better,  bigger,  and  more  productive  lives  for 
society;  hence  we  receive  from  society  only  what  we  take 
to  it;  only  as  society  has  a  rich  and  generous  life  can  we 
have  rich  and  generous  lives. 

As  industry  has  taken  to  society  small  wages,  over- 
worked women,  stunted  children,  shoddy  products,  liars, 
and  cheats,  it  has  found  strikes,  dynamite,  repressive  legis- 
lation, and  intolerance.  As  industry  has  taken  to  society 
generous  living  wages,  hygienic  surroundings,  care  for  its 
workers,  fair  quality,  and  honest  relations  with  customers, 
it  has  received  fair  treatment  and  generous  appreciation 
from  society. 

If  industry  will  arrange  its  business  creed  on  true,  high 
social  ideals,  and  compel  the  unsocial  units  to  do  the  same, 
if  industry  will  build  itself  on  the  social  plane  of  coopera- 
tion among  its  units,  and  if  society  will  wipe  out  the  un- 
social industries  and  businesses;  then  the  education  of  the 


THE    DEBT    TO    SOCIETY  473 

citizen  and  the  worker  will  be  complete,  and  the  results 
must  be  most  satisfactory. 

Short  of  this  ideal  lies  drastic  and  punitive  regulation, 
in  which  the  just  and  the  unjust  are  bound  to  suffer  be- 
cause the  business  man  who  will  not  help  to  drive  out  the 
liar,  the  coward,  the  cheat,  and  the  poisoner  from  his 
midst,  must  therefore  be  considered  as  one  who  abets  the 
criminal  in  his  crimes. 

Business  Must  Solve  Its  Own  Problems 

It  is  one  thing  to  have  an  ideal,  but  it  is  quite  another 
thing  to  be  able  to  make  definite  progress  in  its  pursuit. 

Social  conditions  are  not  what  they  should  be  any- 
where in  the  world.  And  we  cannot  concentrate  to  ob- 
tain the  best  results  so  long  as  the  methods  of  remedying 
these  faults  are  as  various  as  the  sands  of  the  sea.  Methods 
are  always  various  when  experience  has  had  little  to  do 
with  devising  them. 

We  must  dedicate  some  of  our  people  to  the  formula- 
tion of  experience  into  laws,  rules,  and  principles.  We 
must  dedicate  some  of  our  time  and  our  money  to  testing 
what  these  men  find,  by  the  experience  of  everyday  work 
and  living. 

We  have  done  a  great  work.  We  have  created  a  huge 
machine  called  production,  distribution,  and  consumption; 
we  are  today  trying  to  humanize  it  and  socialize  it.  We 
business  men  who  have  made  it,  must  now  take  it  in  hand 
to  humanize  it  and  to  make  it  serve  the  social  body  for 
which  we  made  it.     It  will  not  continue  to  exist  if  it  is 

merely  a  device  by  which  to  extract  from  the  social 
pocketbook  the  maximum  of  results  for  a  minimum  of 
service.  Society  demands  that  this  machine,  as  we  have 
constructed  it,  shall  have  but  one  right  to  exist — to  give 
the  maximum  of  service  for  the  minimum  of  profit. 


474  ICH    DIEN 

The  Menace  of  Socialism 

If  business  does  not  fix  this  thing,  we  shall  have  to 
stand  aside  while  society  tries  its  hand.  If  the  law  is  not 
responsive  to  society's  demand,  we  shall  have  to  take  the 
next  step — collective  action  by  means  of  socialism,  which 
means  the  socialization  of  production,  distribution,  and 
consumption.  I  feel  that  this  is  not  the  affair  of  the  so- 
cialist. On  the  contrary,  I  believe  it  is  very  definitely  a 
matter  to  be  solved  by  the  service  ideals  of  commerce  and 
industry.  If  those  ideals  will  meet  the  service  ideals  of 
society,  socialism  will  become  a  mere  historical  incident; 
but  if  business  falls  far  short  of  their  realization,  socialism 
may  become  an  impending  menace. 

True  and  False  Service 

There  are  two  schools  of  thought  at  work  in  our  busi- 
ness life.  The  one  works  under  the  time-serving  ideal 
which  tells  lies  about  values  in  the  bargain  advertisements; 
which  cheats  in  a  horse  trade;  which  swindles  in  a  fake 
stock  transaction;  which  fools  the  "green"  buyer;  which 
betrays  a  confidence  and  thinks  the  betrayal  a  joke; 
which  uses  diplomacy  and  tact  to  accomplish  an  un- 
worthy end  under  the  guise  of  serving  you ;  which  makes 
the  church  a  cloak  for  double  dealing;  which  sacrifices 
anything  to  get  an  order  today.  Nozsj  is  its  god;  "After 
me  the  deluge,"  its  motto.  The  other  school  follows  the 
service  ideal,  and  its  slogan  is:  "Value  to  body,  mind,  and 
soul  for  every  expenditure  of  each,  today,  tomorrow,  and 
forever." 

Reform  From  the  Outside 

The  man  of  business  must  control  the  government. 
He  must  relegate  the  lawyer  to  his  courts,  the  soldier  to 
his  duty;  he  will  put  the  priest  in  his  pulpit,  and  he  will 


THE    DEBT    TO    SOCIETY 


475 


take  command  of  the  ship  of  state,  because  life  is  a  busi- 
ness and  government  is  a  business. 

We  are  to  put  a  stop  to  this  senseless  fiddling;  this 
black,  bald,  deviltry  of  the  make-believe  of  legalizing 
minds;  this  silly  playing  at  politics  by  hair-splitting  petti- 
foggers; and  these  hyper-judicial,  dry-as-dust  fooleries  of 
men  who  have  given  us  forms,  forms,  forms,  and  so  few 
realities  of  justice. 

The  procedure  of  law  must  be  changed  by  laymen  be- 
cause the  law  is  what  lawyers  have  made  it.  Law  will  be 
humanized  and  made  serviceable  to  society  because  society 
wants  to  use  the  law.  To  expect  lawyers  to  make  it  serv- 
iceable is  to  reverse  history.  The  church  had  to  be 
changed  from  without. 

A  great  political  party  had  to  be  whipped  into  submis- 
sion from  without.  Education  will  have  to  be  changed  by 
the  layman  because  teachers  do  not  know  how. 

Few  great  corporations  have  ever  been  greatly  im- 
proved from  within. 

Capital  will  have  to  be  changed  from  without;  banking 
could  not  bring  forth  a  postal  savings  bank  bill  or  a  cur- 
rency bill. 

Railroads  would  not  regulate  themselves;  so  the  Inter- 
state Commerce  Commission  had  to  be  born  of  public  de- 
mand. 

Society  must  take  into  its  own  hands  the  problem  of 
service.  It  says,  "We  may  know  nothing  about  law,  or 
finance,  or  railroads,  or  the  church;  but  we  do  know  that 
you  are  not  performing  a  service  worth  your  price;  hence 
we  purpose  to  have  you  give  us  what  we  need,  either  im- 
prove your  service  to  fit  your  price  or  cut  your  price  to 
fit  your  service." 

Society  is  the  final  arbiter  and  always  gets  what  it 
really  wants. 


476  ICH    DIEN 

The  Merchant  of  the  Future 

We  have  counted  the  cost,  and  it  has  been  too  much. 
We  have  had  too  much  lav^^-making  by  those  who  make 
their  Hving  by  law-breaking.  Business  knows  that  the 
law  may  kill,  but  that  the  law  cannot  make  alive;  it  under- 
stands the  farce  and  is  growing  tired  of  it  all.  This  is  the 
service  the  new  business  man  can  render  his  day  and  his 
people — create  a  greater  business  in  the  service  of  the 
people. 

"The  merchant  of  the  future,"  said  A.  T.  Stewart, 
"will  not  only  be  an  economist  and  an  industrial  leader, 
but  he  will  be  a  preacher  and  a  humanitarian."  One  has 
but  to  listen  to  Marshall  Field,  John  Wanamaker,  the 
Filenes,  the  Browns,  the  Brocks,  and  the  Baers,  to  know 
that  that  "future"  is  close  at  hand. 

The  man  who  has  the  ideal  of  service  lighting  his  work 
of  today  and  the  way  for  tomorrow,  knows  that  he  is 
playing  with,  and  not  against,  life.  He  stands  for  all  that 
the  "practical"  ideal  betrays.  The  man  of  ideals  is  the 
really  practical  man  because  he  plays  the  game  true  to  the 
rules. 

Listen,  while  Judge  Gary,  Chairman  of  the  Board  of 

Directors  of  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation,  says: 

"We  snarl  at  legislation  or  at  the  Chief  Executive  if  any 
action  is  taken  or  word  spoken  which  we  think  calculated 
to  injure  vested  rights,  but  we  are  apt  to  overlook  the 
fundamental  principle  that  even  vested  rights,  so  called, 
must  yield  whenever  they  become  antagonistic  to  the  public 
welfare  and  safety." 

You  can  make  money  by  serving  entirely  selfish  ideals, 
but  you  can  not  convince  yourself  that  you  are  playing  the 
game  as  a  gentleman.  Your  heart  can  not  feel  the  thrill 
of  emotional  service.  Your  soul  can  not  expand,  unfold, 
and  grow  with  it.  Yotir  head  may  find  a  pleasure  in  the 
ganic  played  witli  lorulcd  dice,  as  did  Scrooge  and  Faust, 


THE    DEBT    TO    SOCIETY  477 

but  it  will  not  last.  Such  great  factors,  such  great  mas- 
ters of  men  as  Napoleon,  as  Alexander,  as  Cortez,  as  Pi- 
zarro,  as  Genghis  Khan,  as  Hannibal,  as  Antony,  as 
Caesar,  have  done  great  things;  but  alas!  there  is  always 
a  "but!" 

"His  character,"  declared  the  faithful  Bertrand,  who 
went  into  exile  with  Napoleon,  "is  the  reason  why  he  had 
few  friends  and  so  many  enemies,  and  why  we  are  here  at 
St.  Helena." 

For  Napoleon — he  of  the  Code  and  of  a  thousand 
personal  efficiencies — a  people  did  not  exist.  He  believed 
only  in  force  and  diplomacy.  Kings  were  the  nations. 
He  fell  because  he  could  not  understand  that  the  people 
in  any  land  are  the  court  of  last  resort,  as  witness  his 
treatment  of  Germany.  I  have  known  great  managers  of 
the  same  amiable  type. 

We  may  believe  with  Nietzsche  that  man  struggles, 
strives,  studies,  plans,  schemes,  to  gain  power;  that  the 
"will  to  power"  is  the  motive  of  all  the  progress  of  the 
world;  but  even  that  belief  does  not  forget  that  efficiency  is 
that  power  by  which  mind,  heart,  and  soul  are  made  to  re- 
spond to  mind,  heart,  and  soul;  and  that  satisfaction  is 
the  only  thing  that  power  can  give,  and  must  be  triune  in 
its  blessings. 

The  over-accenting  of  materialism  breeds  the  fruits 
that  turn  to  dust  on  the  lips.  We  have  touched  before 
upon  this  false  valuation  of  things.  Now  we  know,  I  trust, 
that  the  final  result  must  be  satisfaction  or  life  remains  a 
failure  no  matter  what  its  balance  sheet  may  show  in 
profits. 

The  Passing  of  the  Egotist 

The  danger  to  any  man  of  powct  is  that  he  will  use  all 
his  energies  of  appetite  or  spirit  or  mind  to  accomplish 


478  ICH    DIEN 

his  own  gratification.  He  is  also  a  danger  to  society  be- 
cause great  ability  selfishly  applied  portends  a  swaying  of 
the  social  economy  away  from  the  normal  line  of  growth. 
Society  resents  the  great  man  who  does  not  attempt  to 
carry  it  to  new  realizations. 

We  see  the  passing  of  men  of  the  Henry  O.  Havemeyer 
type,  who  said  it  was  none  of  the  stockholders'  business 
what  became  of  any  single  dollar  so  long  as  the  dividends 
were  paid.  We  see  the  rise  of  men  like  Judge  Gary,  of 
the  United  States  Steel  Corporation,  and  Theodore  N. 
Vail,  of  the  American  Telegraph  and  Telephone  Company, 
who  say  that  we  must  know  that  service  corporations  are 
in  business  to  give  service  to  the  public.  Henry  H. 
Rogers  and  Harriman  passed,  too,  because  their  day  was 
done  and  in  their  place  has  come  a  new  generation  of 
business  men  who  are  statesmen  rather  than  politicians. 
It  is  not  the  big  combinations  of  business  that  the  people 
distrust,  but  the  man  who  runs  a  big  business  as  if  it  be- 
longed to  him;  as  if  he  could  do  as  he  pleased  with  it. 

The  man  who  wants  more  than  his  share  of  the  reward 
and  who  refuses  the  fair  deal  to  the  people,  is  in  trouble 
and  will  have  more  trouble. 

The  New  Basis  of  Valuation 

The  world  is  becoming  more  human.  As  long  as  dis- 
content was  individual,  personal,  and  isolated,  there  was 
no  cure;  but  the  public  is  now  casting  off  Republicanism 
and  Democracy  as  party  symbols,  and  putting  its  business 
relations  on  a  business  basis.  The  world  is  going  to  settle 
its  business  on  the  new  basis  of  appraising  the  service 
value  of  its  corporations — railroads,  public  service  com- 
panies, banks,  and  manufactories — and  is  going  to  settle 
the  relations  of  these  four  great  divisions  of  our  business 
life  on  a  service-value  basis.     If  they  can  not  prove  that 


THE    DEBT    TO    SOCIETY 


479 


they  are  doing  what  they  should  by  their  methods  and 
production  to  merit  the  protection  of  society,  society  will 
eliminate  them. 

Society  is  always  working  towards  this  end,  and 
George  W.  Perkins  voiced  society's  attitude  in  these 
words:  "The  only  kind  of  a  trust  that  deserves  to  live 
is  one  that  makes  money  for  its  stockholders  by  manufac- 
turing a  commodity  that  the  people  need  for  a  less  price 
than  they  were  able  to  get  it  for  before." 

The  Why  of  Welfare  Work 

Why  does  the  United  States  Steel  Company  pay  five 
millions  of  dollars  a  year  for  welfare  work?  Is  it  not  be- 
cause it  recognizes  that  society  says,  "Care  for  your  own"? 

Mr.  Louis  A.  Coolidge,  Treasurer  of  the  United  Shoe 
Machinery  Company,  calls  attention  to  the  work  done  by 
his  company  at  Beverly.     His  company  is  maintaining — 

At  the  factory  (a)  sunlight  and  fresh  air,  (b)  sanitary 
conveniences,  (c)  machine  safety  devices,  (d)  emergency 
hospital,  (e)  restaurant  and  rest  rooms,  (f)  special  accom- 
modations for  women  employes,  (g)  industrial  school. 
Outside  the  factory  (h)  social  club-houses  for  employes, 
with  athletic  facilities  of  all  kinds,  (i)  home  building  oppor- 
tunities, (j)  mutual  relief  associations  and  savings  bank 
insurance,  (k)  land  for  cultivation. 

Why?   Because  it  is  recognizing  a  debt  to  society. 

The  Social  Debt  of  Science 

Science,  too,  is  recognizing  its  social  debt. 

The  scientist  will  realize  that  his  real  value,  the  value 
of  what  he  does,  is  to  be  judged  entirely  by  its  social  use- 
fulness. The  social  usefulness  of  science  is  to  be  demon- 
strated "in  nothing  more  nor  less  than  its  capacity,"  says 
Professor  Ostwald,   "of  forecasting  the  future,   and  thus 


48o  ICH    DIEN 

influencing  it  in  a  direction  favorable  for  humanity  at 
large." 

Here  is  the  service  ideal  placed  squarely  before  the  man 
of  science. 

When  we  get  a  greater  and  better  organization  of  sci- 
entific work,  we  shall  have  a  clearer  perception  of  what 
we  have  done,  and  what  is  to  be  done. 

The  Social  Debt  of  Business 

Today  the  world  demands  an  accounting  and  is  going 
farther;  it  asks  why  there  should  be  so  many  itching  palms 
between  the  hen  and  the  breakfast  table. 

Service  is  lacking.  Competition  has  failed  to  give 
service  again,  because  we  get  too  little  service,  and  pay  for 
too  much  competition. 

Whom  does  the  manufacturer  serve? 

Whom  does  the  wholesaler  serve  ? 

Whom  does  the  retailer  serve  ? 

Is  it  not  a  fact  that  the  consumer  only  serves  himself 
while  the  rest  serve  themselves  as  classes,  and  that  these 
classes  then  serve  each  other  ? 

The  public's  response  to  costly  competition  in  Great 
Britain  was  Co-operative  Societies,  and  the  retail  class 
had  to  take  to  chain  stores.  In  this  country  it  will  be 
the  same;  as  witness  the  sporadic  attempts  of  the  Granges, 
the  Mutual  Benefit  Societies  in  Michigan,  and  the  ac- 
tivity of  former  Mayor  Shanks  of  Indianapolis,  and  the 
Mayor  of  Des  Moines.  The  only  hold  the  Parcel-Post 
bill  has  on  the  pubUc,  is  through  the  high  cost  of  liv- 
ing, not,  you  will  notice,  the  high  cost  of  vegetables,  or 
eggs,  or  butter,  for  their  cost  is  not  high. 

But  when  dealers  would  rather  throw  a  carload  of 
potatoes  into  the  river  than  lower  the  price,  there  is 
something  twisted  about  the  service  ideals  of  the  pro- 


THE    DEBT    TO    SOCIETY  48 1 

(luce  commission  business;  and  the  public  proceeds  to 
wipe  out  such  parasites. 

Secretary  of  Commerce  W.  C.  Redfield  said:  "The 
consumer  of  the  present  day  has  a  right  to  expect  ef- 
ficiency in  management  and  the  pubHc  will  resent  any 
lack  of  it." 

Here  we  get  the  acid  test,  "Whafs  the  usef"  phrased 
in  a  different  way.  Secretary  Redfield's  statement  seems 
to  be  a  fairly  straight-from-the-shoulder  definition.  It 
tends  to  define  the  public's  attitude  toward  the  public 
service  corporation.  Secretary  Redfield  also  suggests 
what  many  are  beginning  to  realize,  that  all  corpora- 
tions, if  not  all  businesses,  are  to  be  considered  public 
service  corporations,  and  that  the  public  has  a  right  to 
dictate  the  rules  of  the  game  of  business  under  all  con- 
ditions. 

If  it  be  true  that  the  public  is  going  to  take  a  larger 
part  in  the  conduct  of  all  business,  business  must  or- 
ganize its  future  in  the  light  of  the  gospel  of  efficiency. 

Many  have  hesitated  to  embark  on  such  a  propaganda 
of  organization.  There  is  no  reason  why  business  should 
not  organize,  except  one;  if  it  organizes  for  the  purpose 
of  preventing  progress  and  changes,  it  may  well  wait 
on  a  larger  vision;  if  it  organizes  for  the  purpose  of  rais- 
ing the  quantity  and  quality  of  service  to  the  community, 
it  will  do  that  which  is  for  its  own  benefit.  The  spirit 
of  the  new  gospel  demands  that  business  should  do  this. 
It  is  the  scientific  thing  to  do.  Business  has  many  im- 
portant things  to  do  which  cannot  be  well  done  so  long 
as  it  is  divided  in  its  own  house  over  means  and  methods. 

Business  will  sooner  or  later  have  to  justify  its  man- 
agement. It  will  have  to  justify  its  claim  to  social  sup- 
port. It  will  have  to  show  that  its  methods  are  most 
efficiently  doing  the  work  which  society  requires  of  it. 


482  ICH    DIEN 

The  Social  Debt  of  the  Individual 

You  may  put  down  in  your  note-book  that  no  man 
can  serve  his  own  best  interests  by  betraying  another's. 
He  may  not  know  when  he  makes  restitution,  but  he 
makes  it;  service,  Hke  love,  is  to  be  tested,  not  by  giv- 
ing up,  but  by  living  up.  The  idle  rich  are  not  the  only 
parasites,  as  life  in  a  cottage  along  the  main  traveled  road 
near  a  great  city  will  soon  teach  you.  The  Weary  Wil- 
lies who  tramp  that  road  grumble  that  "the  rich  man 
should  divide  his  millions  with  the  world." 

What  has  the  world  done  with  the  savings  it  has 
made  in  the  cost  of  some  of  its  necessities?  Has  it 
brought  more  happiness  with  the  profits?  Can  it  be 
proved  that  there  would  be  less  want  in  the  world  if  Mr. 
Carnegie  should  tomorrow  give  three  dollars  to  every  sec- 
ond man  and  woman  in  the  world,  instead  of  endowing 
schools  and  colleges  and  foundations  where  the  best 
methods  of  eliminating  pain  and  poverty  might  be  dis- 
covered by  experiment?  Would  you  and  I  and  a  million 
others  give  the  twenty-five  million  dollars  to  found  that 
institute?  It  would  cost  five  millions  and  ten  years  to 
collect  the  money;  in  the  meantime,  Carnegie  gives  it. 

Taking  and  Not  Giving — The  Penalty 

Yet  this  is  the  moral  obligation  which  we  must  pay 
willingly  with  satisfaction  or  unwillingly  with  pain,  but 
pay  we  must.  For  "Taking  and  not  giving,"  said  a 
writer  in  an  article  discussing  commercial  piracy,  "is  the 
vice  of  the  old  pirate,  who  died  at  the  yard-arm  of  his 
own  ship,  or  was  marooned  on  some  ghastly,  bleached 
coral  isle  to  rot."  Taking  and  not  giving  was  the  crime 
of  Charles  H,  who  left  only  his  mistresses  to  mourn  his 
death.  Taking  and  not  giving  made  Marie  Antoinette 
see  the  diamond  necklace  in  the  bloody  basket.     Taking 


THE    DEBT    TO    SOCIETY  483 

and  not  giving  roused  dead  Germany  to  hear  the  voice 
of  Stein,  and  sent  Napoleon  to  Elba. 

Taking  and  not  giving  defeated  the  redcoats  at  Lex- 
ington. Taking  and  not  giving  was  the  canker  at  the 
heart  of  that  vain  pomp  of  power  which  stood  for  Diaz; 
when  it  was  called  upon  to  stand  the  test  of  service,  it 
fell.  Taking  and  not  giving  has  made  the  tariff  policy  a 
special  menace  which  men  will  no  longer  tolerate.  Tak- 
ing and  not  giving  made  Walsh  a  failure,  Yerkes  a  failure, 
Marsh  a  failure;  it  brought  the  life  insurance  companies 
into  disrepute;  it  has  made  political  insurgency  neces- 
sary. 

Taking  and  not  giving  shortens  the  lives  of  the  drones 
in  every  hive,  and  puts  the  eternal  and  everlasting 
"kibosh"  on  the  best  laid  plans  of  the  canniest  of  men;  for 
Nature  demands  her  price,  a  compensation  for  every- 
thing; and  it  is  the  veriest  truism  to  say  that  she  will  be 
paid. 


Ramsey  DppsnhBimCalnc 

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